Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

RAILWAY CLEARING SYSTEM SUPERANNUATION FUND BILL [Lords]

Read a Second time and committed.

BRITISH TRANSPORT DOCKS BILL (By Order)

LONDON TRANSPORT BILL (By Order)

Orders for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time upon Tuesday 27th April.

ROYAL COUNTY OF BERKSHIRE (PUBLIC ENTERTAINMENT) PROVISIOORDER CONFIRMATION

Mr. Secretary Jenkins presented a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order made by the Secretary of State under the Local Government Act 1972 relating to the Royal County of Berkshire; and the same was read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills; to be printed. [Bill 124].

FIRCROFT COLLEGE

Address for Return

of the report of a Committee of Inquiry into the problems at Fircroft College.—[Mr. Mulley.]

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT

Training Boards

Mr. Sainsbury: asked the Secretary of State for Employment whether he will consider instituting a review of the work of the industrial training boards.

The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Harold Walker): I am advised by the Manpower Services Commission that they see no immediate need to institute a review of the work of the industrial training boards.

Mr. Sainsbury: Does the Minister accept that there is widespread doubt about the validity of some of these boards' training work? In view of the size of the administrative costs—more than £6½ million in the last year for which we have records—will he ask the Training Services Agency to review urgently the question whether the boards provide the best value in the important area of training?

Mr. Walker: I do not agree that there are widespread doubts. I think there is a recognition that the boards have made a significant contribution to the quality and quantity of industrial training since the inception following the 1964 Act.

Mr. Michael Marshall: Does the Minister accept that there is an urgent need to look into the activities of the Engineering Industry Training Board, under the chairmanship of Mr. Hugh Scanlon, which has recently arbitrarily dismissed members and abolished the Foundry Industry Training Committee, under circumstances that require urgent investigation?

Mr. Walker: I pay tribute to the enthusiasm and vigour Mr. Scanlon has brought to the work of the Board. He has made and is making an outstanding contribution. Press reports that the hon. Member may have read this morning have been most misleading. There has been a long-standing difficulty between the Committee and the Board with problems about scope and constitution and the Committee's desire to be reconstituted as


a training board in its own right. These are matters which are not necessarily linked to the chairmanship of the Board and they are being inquired into by the Manpower Services Commission.

Mr. Michael Latham: Must it not remain a basic principle of levy grants that the cost of training is shared throughout the industry and not paid just by those who do training?

Mr. Walker: The hon. Member takes a keen interest in these matters. If he has not read the recent consultative document published by the Training Services Agency on vocational preparation, I urge him to do so. It has some radical proposals in respect of levy grants, and the matter is under review.

Mr. Ernest G. Perry: Will my hon. Friend realise that the Opposition, in their attempts to denigrate the boards, are trying to make them seem less worth while than they really are? Does he recognise that people moving from one sphere of employment to another require these boards, and that I hope he will continue the programme?

Mr. Walker: My hon. Friend will know that the boards are primarily concerned with training rather than retraining. The criticisms that we have heard today are not widely reflected, even on the Benches opposite. I am sure the Opposition Front Bench would be ready to pay tribute to the valuable work done by the boards.

British Leyland

Mr. Hal Miller: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what assistance or advice he has given either the National Enterprise Board or British Leyland to achieve the improvements in productivity and industrial relations which the Prime Minister declared would be necessary before further sums of public money could be advanced to the company.

The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Albert Booth): I am confident that both management and the trade unions in British Leyland fully recognise the improvements that need to be made, and are committed to their achievement. The current unofficial strikes are, however, putting the future of the company and the employment it provides at risk,

have already resulted in the lay-off of many other employees, and can only damage the company's competitive position both in this country and overseas. I earnestly hope that the strikers will now quickly return to work, as instructed by their union.

Mr. Miller: I congratulate my old opponent on his recent appointment, but will he please answer my Question? What advice or assistance has he given to the NEB or the company to improve industrial relations and efficiency? Have the Government set any bench marks which must be met before further tranches of public money are made available?

Mr. Booth: The position of the Government has been made very clear to the company and the NEB. It was included in the agreement on which the money was provided for British Leyland. The Government will look to see that improvements in productivity and efficiency are made before more money is committed to the firm.

Mr. Stokes: Is the Secretary of State aware that there is immense concern in my constituency and in all constituencies where British Leyland workers five that the company is in such an appalling situation? Why is morale so low, and why are Ministers, the Government and the NEB doing nothing about it?

Mr. Booth: It is not the case that nothing is being done. A considerable improvement has been made in the position of the company. The unions have worked with the company in achieving that improvement. New consultative machinery has been set up. The recent strikes have been most worrying and damaging, but we must not allow them to blind us to the progress that has been made, nor should we allow them to lead us to the conclusion that if Government money is provided it will solve all the problems of a company at a stroke. A number of long-term changes have to be worked out in the company. I am concerned that they should be made and that as much progress as possible can be achieved.

Mr. loan Evans: I join in congratulating my right hon. Friend on his promotion. Will he continue the efforts that he and his predecessor have made to try to bring about a satisfactory industrial


relations situation in British Leyland? Will he remind the Opposition that at this moment the President of the AUEW is in London talking to British Leyland workers and trying to find a solution to the problems? It is not helpful for the Opposition to be critical about the present situation when so much is being done by the trade union movement.

Mr. Booth: I thank my hon. Friend for his congratulations. I confirm what he said. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry and I talked to the President of the AUEW this morning. In a few minutes, if he is not doing so already, he will be talking to those most directly involved with a view to bringing about a conclusion to the dispute and a return to work as rapidly as possible.

Mr. Hayhoe: I add my congratulations to the new Secretary of State on his first appearance at the Dispatch Box to answer Questions. We hope that he will do better than his predecessor. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we shall support all efforts to end this damaging dispute? Is he aware that there is great public disquiet that public money continues to be put into the company despite the sad history of industrial disputes?

Mr. Booth: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his congratulations. I shall be very proud if I can achieve half as much as my predecessor in bringing about a proper liaison between the Government and trade unions in the interests of the economy and the country. I welcome the hon. Gentleman's assurance of support towards ending a damaging dispute. With the greatest respect to the hon. Gentleman, I suggest that to generalise, as one or two of his hon. Friends are in danger of doing, on a specific dispute, and to suggest that it will wreck the company, will not necessarily aid the situation at a time when crucial talks are taking place.

London

Mr. Tebbit: asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he is satisfied with the level of employment in London.

The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. John Fraser): No, Sir.

Mr. Tebbit: At least that is of some comfort, because we can find agreement on that. Will the hon. Gentleman consider

most carefully not so much the present level of unemployment in London—although it is at an historic high—but the level of jobs in London, which has been on a long decline for some years, especially in the manufacturing sector? Will he examine regional policies to ascertain what can be done to arrest the decline?

Mr. Fraser: I have considered these matters. There has been a decline of about 500,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector. That has been partially compensated by an increase in jobs in the service industries. However, we are concerned about the mismatch between what people want to do and the jobs that are available. The hon. Gentleman will have noticed a recent relaxation in the issuing of industrial development certificates that allows for slightly larger developments to take place without an IDC. That policy allows for a renewal of obsolete factories on a speculative basis.

Mr. Molloy: Is my hon. Friend aware that a number of firms have been moving out of London—a movement that has had an effect on the training of skilled manpower? Will he give an assurance that there will be no let-up in industrial training for the youth of London?

Mr. Fraser: Yes, I can give that assurance. The problem in London is normally an acute shortage of manpower. The way to match the demand for jobs and job opportunities, which I am confident will become available, is by way of training.

Mr. Anthony Grant: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that an answer to a Question from me revealed that in the Greater London area unemployment has increased by 159 per cent, in the past two years? Is he further aware that much of that increase in unemployment stems from the policies of the Government and of local government, which have deterred small firms and moved them away from the area? Unless the hon. Gentleman wants Greater London to become a sort of concentration camp of Government bureaucrats and head office administrators, what on earth is he going to do? What pressures will he bring to bear on the GLC?

Mr. Fraser: I have already indicated that there has been a relaxation of IDC


policy. That relaxation will have assisted smaller firms to remain in London. Secondly, I must re-emphasise that normally there is an acute shortage of manpower in London. In 1974 there were 3·4 unemployed unskilled workers for every unskilled vacancy, which was perhaps the lowest figure in the country. When we consider the increase in unemployment in the South-East generally we must bear in mind, and take some comfort from the fact, that it is not only the development areas that have taken the worst brunt of the rise in unemployment.

Mr. Russell Kerr: I shall risk appearing to agree with the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit). Will my hon. Friend have a special look at the problems in and around West London, including my constituency, to ascertain what special measures may be required? Over the past year there have been many examples of a deteriorating situation, which must be of concern to my right hon. and hon. Friends.

Mr. Fraser: I have similar problems in my own borough—the borough of Lambeth. I am prepared to examine the special difficulties that my hon. Friend has in mind in any part of London where there is an unemployment black spot.

Mr. Molloy: asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will publish in theOfficial Reportstatistics for the last quarter on the relative rates of unemployment in each London borough.

Mr. John Fraser: I regret that this information is not available. Rates of unemployment can be calculated only for the whole of Greater London.

Mr. Molloy: Is my hon. Friend aware that the rates of unemployment change dramatically from one London borough to another? Is he prepared to consider calling a London conference involving representatives of the GLC, the London boroughs, trade unionists and employers to make a proper assessment of the problem and to contribute to its solution?

Mr. Fraser: I cannot undertake an exercise of that magnitude without discussion with my colleagues. It is true that there are pockets of difficult employment problems in London. I have always

expressed a willingness to discuss these matters with representatives of the GLC and others and I shall continue to do so.

Mr. Peter Bottomley: Does the Minister agree that the unemployment rate in London has risen drastically during the last two years, through unrestrained pay increases and unrestrained Government spending? Would not a reversal of those two policies help to bring down unemployment?

Mr. Fraser: Unemployment in London has risen from 2 per cent, to 3·7 per cent. Of course, policies that restrain the rate of inflation will help, not only in London but throughout the rest of the country, to under-write employment security.

Retirement Age

Mr. Walter Johnson: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what representations he has received from the TUC concerning the lowering of the retirement age for men employed in the heavy engineering industry.

Mr. John Fraser: None, Sir.

Mr. Johnson: Is my hon. Friend aware that there are thousands of men over 60 in the heavy engineering industry who are doing jobs beyond their physical capacity, thus causing breakdowns in health, early retirements, and sometimes early deaths? Will the Government devise a scheme to enable men over 60 years of age to retire before the normal retiring age of 65, on full pension, subject to medical control and examination?

Mr. Fraser: I must tell my hon. Friend that early retirement on the State pension is primarily a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. Apart from that, the age of retirement for various groups of workers is usually a matter for negotiation in the firms or industries to which they belong. I have not received any representations from trade unions on this matter.

Mr. Marten: As many employees over 60 who are made redundant are unlikely to get other jobs, what would be the difference in cost between such persons drawing unemployment pay or social security benefit, on the one hand, and


retirement pay, on the other, at the age of 60 or above?

Mr. Fraser: On the hon. Gentleman's premise, I think that the difference would be fairly small. I have considered this problem. It is not an easy matter, by any means. It is primarily a matter for another Department. It is not easy to devise a scheme that does not have economically damaging side effects.

Mr. Greville Janner: Will my hon. Friend at least consult the Secretary of State for Social Services to ascertain whether some scheme can be evolved which will mean that people who are over 60 and unfit will be entitled to retire early?

Mr. Fraser: I understand that some such arrangement is at present available, but that sort of question must be addressed primarily to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services.

Mr. Greville Janner: asked the Secretary of State for Employment whether he will take steps to enable men employed in his Department to retire on pension at the same age as women.

Mr. John Fraser: All officers employed by my Department are covered by the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme or similar schemes, which do not differentiate for pension purposes between men and women.

Mr. Janner: Does my hon. Friend agree that if that same excellent principle were applied throughout the employment areas and not merely in the Civil Service, about 750,000 jobs would become available, because older people would leave them and younger people would be able to take their places?

Mr. Fraser: It does not necessarily follow that because retirement is encouraged young people will take the place of those who have retired. Secondly, it is a matter of great expense if it is done by way of the State pension scheme. Thirdly, if it is an occupational pension scheme, it is a matter for negotiation, not direction.

Sir John Hall: Does the Minister agree that in view of the greater life expectancy of women, especially married women, there is a case for arranging for the

retirement of women at the same age as men, and not earlier?

Mr. Fraser: It is undeniable that there are discrepancies and discrimination in the arrangements as between men and women, but in terms of the State pension scheme that is not a matter for which I have to answer; it is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services.

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: Does my hon. Friend agree that although the cost of an immediate reduction of the pension age of men to 60 may be prohibitive there is an overwhelming case for a Government scheme to reduce the pensionable age of men to 60 over a period of 10 years? Does he accept that there may also be a case for the selective introduction of retirement at 60 in certain areas now?

Mr. Fraser: A case can be made out for selective treatment. It has been done in the past, usually by selective redundancy schemes in the docks and elsewhere rather than by means of a retirement scheme.

Mr. Marten: Does the Minister know how many of today's unemployed are over the age of 60?

Mr. Fraser: I cannot give the number without notice, but it is true that unemployment is disproportionately high in the over-55 age group. Not so long ago we were looking at the resources of skilled manpower and trying to fill places by bringing extra manpower into the market. The House voted for a relaxation in the retirement earnings rule, so that people could go back to work. It is not right to seek a short-term solution to the problem.

Norfolk

Mr. MacGregor: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what new jobs have been created and existing jobs saved in Norfolk to date as a direct result of the Government's specific measures over the past six months to alleviate unemployment.

Mr. John Fraser: Up to the end of March, 35 jobs have been created in Norfolk as a result of the Manpower Services Commission's job creation programme. Under the schemes administered directly


by my Department, 465 jobs in the area have been saved under the temporary employment subsidy scheme and 143 school leavers assisted under the recruitment subsidy scheme.

Mr. MacGregor: Will the Minister take into account the fact that, as these figures show, the Government's measures do not really help to solve the employment problems of towns and villages in scattered country areas where small businesses are facing hard times and where there is often no alternative employment, especially for men? Is he also aware that there is great concern in the building industry in Norfolk that there will be much higher unemployment in a few months' time because of the lack of contracts in the pipeline, especially for industrial and commercial building? Will the Minister therefore consider the possibility of urging a redefinition of intermediate and development areas which may help to solve these problems?

Mr. Fraser: I recognise that there are problems of employment in Norfolk, particularly in the rural areas. The Development Commission has a remit to help the small areas affected by depopulation and the other problems that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. I ought to remind him that the unemployment rate in Norfolk at present is 5·8 per cent., which is only a little above the national average. I could not in any way suggest that resources should be diverted from areas which have much greater problems to an area whose unemployment rate is only slightly above national average.

Republic of Ireland (British Nationals)

Mr. Brotherton: asked the Secretary of State for Employment if British nationals are entitled to draw unemployment benefit in the Republic of Ireland.

Mr. Harold Walker: The Social Security Act 1975 does not permit any person to receive British unemployment benefit in respect of a period during which he is in the Republic of Ireland. Under EEC rules an unemployed British national who goes to the Republic of Ireland in order to seek employment there, may, in certain circumstances, be provided with unemployment benefit by the

Republic, at cost to Great Britain, for a period not exceeding three months.

Mr. Brotherton: Is it not a disgrace that on the other side of the coin literally hundreds of people can come from the Republic of Ireland to this country and draw large sums in employment benefit? Will the Minister undertake to have this law changed as quickly as possible?

Mr. Walker: The hon. Gentleman, whose comments I have seen in the Press and heard on radio, seems completely to misunderstand the position. In order to qualify for unemployment benefit, the applicant must first satisfy the contribution conditions; he must sign on at least weekly, and he must be available immediately for work. I have put a letter in the post to the hon. Gentleman so as to dispel some of the ideas that are, perhaps, leading him into this anti-Irish vendetta.

School Leavers

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the employment prospects of those school leavers currently unemployed in obtaining jobs before the end of the year.

Mr. John Fraser: It is too early for firm predictions, but there has been a recent increase in the number of jobs available for young people and I hope that this trend will continue. However, there is no cause for complacency, and the Government's anti-unemployment measures are kept under continuous review.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: Is my hon. Friend aware that, welcome and important as the Government's measures have been, there are still too many school leavers unemployed? There are nearly 2,500 unemployed on Mersey side and 251 in Kirkby, in my constituency. In many ways the damage to their confidence and morale is even more destructive than that which applies to adult workers. Will my hon. Friend give the House an assurance that he will take action now to ensure that those school children who leave school this summer will find employment?

Mr. Fraser: I fully agree with my hon. Friend that unemployment for young


people and school leavers is particularly corrosive. That is why the Government have paid so much attention to matters such as the expansion of training, the job creation scheme—geared particularly for young people—community industry, which is operating, I think, in my hon. Friend's constituency, and the recruitment subsidy for school leavers. These matters will be kept under review. It looks as though there are signs of improvement in the situation, but we shall keep the matter under constant review.

Mr. Bulmer: Does the Minister accept that there is still an insufficient level of understanding between those in education and those in industry of what it is reasonable to require of each other in preparing young people for employment? Has the Minister any steps in mind to improve the situation?

Mr. Fraser: It is quite right to say that far too many young people are leaving school without very high educational qualifications. There is a great lack of vocational training for about 300,000 children who leave school each year. The Government intend to make a statement shortly about new arrangements for vocational preparation for these young people.

Mr. Atkinson: Will my hon. Friend recognise, however, that much of the problem lies with his own Department? That is for the simple reason that the number of apprenticeships in skilled training is now decreasing yearly and is running at an all-time low record, because the other side of his Department, for good reasons, is now training adult men for skills that are normally provided by apprentice training organised by employers. Employers now recognise that it is far cheaper to take someone from an adult training centre rather than themselves providing facilities for education and the skill training of young people.

Mr. Fraser: I do not agree that there is a contradiction there. The number of training places has been increased considerably, in terms of both apprenticeship and skillcentre training. One of the problems that we face frequently is not a surplus but a shortage of skilled craftsmen. We are right to continue the thrust on both fronts.

Unemployed Persons

Mr. Adley: asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the current level of unemployment.

Mr. Henderson: asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the current level of unemployment.

Mr. Newton: asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on current unemployment levels.

Mr. Rooker: asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the latest unemployment figures.

Mr. Booth: The fall in unemployment and the increased number of vacancies in March were encouraging, though the level of unemployment is still very high, and the battle against unemployment must continue. There are signs, however, that the world economy is emerging from recession. But the reduction of unemployment in the long term depends upon defeating inflation and improving our competitive performance in world trade.

Mr. Adley: I congratulate the Minister on his promotion. Does he really think that his Government have honoured their election manifestos in the matter of reducing unemployment? Will he say when he thinks that the level of unemployment will be reduced to the figure of below 600,000, which was the present Government's inheritance from their Conservative predecessors?

Mr. Booth: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his congratulations. As to honouring our election manifestos, the action that the Government have taken has resulted in unemployment in Britain being at a lower level than that of most comparable countries, and we have done that starting from a much worse balance of trade position than that of most other countries. I am not prepared to give a forecast of the time of achieving a drop in unemployment, but I am prepared to give an assurance that I shall, with those


other Ministers primarily concerned in this matter, work to achieve a drop in the figure as swiftly as possible.

Mr. Rooker: Will my right hon. Friend tell me how I shall explain to the unemployed in Birmingham why there is a motion on the Order Paper today which would grant the Leader of the Opposition and four Opposition Whips a £14-a-week salary increase, when one receives over £8,500, which should be frozen, and when all this is during the period of the £6-a-week limit, which was supposed to decrease unemployment?

Mr. Booth: It seems that my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State for Employment, on being translated to another position, has put down a motion that causes considerable embarrassment to his late Department. I shall have to take the matter up directly with him.

Mr. Henderson: I take my first opportunity to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his well-merited elevation to the position of Secretary of State. Will he take this opportunity to condemn practices that increase unemployment? In particular, will he condemn the practice of Imperial Metal Industries, which is the company which owns Sir W. H. Bailey and Company Limited and which is closing down that factory in Glasgow so that it can transfer work to Manchester?

Mr. Booth: I certainly deplore transferring work from development areas. I regret to say that the example that the hon. Gentleman has given is not the only one of which I am aware. I am looking into the matter. However, I hope that trade unions will take full advantage of their rights under the Employment Protection Act to consult on the question of redundancy. This, coupled with the increase of temporary employment subsidies, is one of the measures to avoid closures of factories at this stage.

Mr. Newton: Does the Secretary of State accept that even his modest optimism about the prospects does not bear much relation to the situation in the building industry? This is causing increasing difficulty to supplying firms, such as Crittalls, in my constituency. Given that the public sector clearly will not come to the rescue, will the Secretary of State ask the Chancellor of the

Exchequer to change his attitude towards tax relief on commercial and farm buildings?

Mr. Booth: Both the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for the Environment are keenly aware of the effect of their policies on employment levels in the building industry. It is one of the matters that we are considering within our overall strategy. I do not believe that the best way to tackle unemployment in the construction industry is by taxation measures.

Mr. Noble: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the long-term employment problems in the regions is caused by the failure of regional policy? Does he further agree that the present policy is far too indiscriminate, with 45 per cent, of the country designated as assisted areas? Does he not think that there is a need for more direct assistance? What pressures have his Department put on the Department of Industry for a thorough review of regional policy?

Mr. Booth: When there are high levels of unemployment in practically every region in the country—higher than we would wish—it is difficult to argue for greater discrimination. In our examination of unemployment levels in the regions we have found that regional policies have achieved a measure of success, and that the percentage increase in the regions during the present slump is not as high as in previous slumps.

Mr. George Rodgers: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what will be the anticipated increase in the available labour force by 1981.

Mr. John Fraser: Projections, on the basis of certain assumptions, were published in my Department's Gazette for December last year and indicated a possible increase in the labour force, excluding students, between 1976 and 1981 of about 750,000, about one-third of whom are men and two-thirds women.

Mr. Rodgers: Does my right hon. Friend agree that those figures are formidable and that the prospect of absorbing such numbers into manufacturing industry is remote? Is not the answer to turn to the public sector to provide useful and sensible employment for such people?

Mr. Fraser: I agree that it is a large number of people to absorb into employment, but one cannot necessarily relate the increase in the number of people in the labour force to those who choose to be registered for employment. Proposals to cut public expenditure as severely as is suggested by the Opposition are bound to have an effect on employment.

Mr. Wigley: Does the Minister accept that the significant factor is not just the number by which the labour force has increased but the possible decrease in employment in existing industries? Does his Department undertake routine surveys of the projections of declining industries to see how they affect potential future employment

Mr. Fraser: Projections of this kind are published from time to time in the Department of Employment Gazette but, of course, they are always subject to wide margins of error.

Mr. Flannery: Does my hon. Friend accept that many people on the Government Benches think that, in the interests of further and fuller employment, at least a partial reflation of the economy and selective import controls are needed? We see the crocodile tears shed by the Opposition on the question of unemployment, but does my hon. Friend agree that the Draconic cuts which they would like in public expenditure would be bound to lead to massive unemployment?

Mr. Fraser: I accept my hon. Friend's last assumption. But import controls and reflation are matters primarily for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. One guarantee of future employment and prosperity is that we should be competitive, reliable and efficient; those factors also have a part to play.

Mr. Watkinson: asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he proposes any new measures to bring down the level of unemployment in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Booth: The Government have introduced a number of measures to bring down the level of unemployment, the latest of which were announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 6th April.

Mr. Watkinson: Does my right hon. Friend accept that when there can be no general reflation, we must rely on selective assistance? Will he consider introducing a selective recruitment scheme under which, in areas in which unemployment is above the national average, cash payments can be paid to employers if they take on extra labour?

Mr. Booth: I undertake to examine that suggestion. We have introduced a number of measures that are selective between different groups of employers—for example, the recruitment subsidy. I do not believe that measures of this kind can of themselves provide a total solution. At best, they will affect total employment by less than 250,000. For a total solution we must look to competition in industry and Treasury and trading policies, as well as those matters affecting my Department.

Mr. Steen: Does the Secretary of State agree that we could abolish unemployment completely by offering the unemployed the chance to do community work in return for unemployment benefit? Does he agree that the job creation programme tackles the problems of only a small minority of the unemployed? Is it not the case that if he took up my suggestion we could cut the rate of unemployment at a stroke?

Mr. Booth: I only wish that we could abolish unemployment at a stroke. There may be a wider rôle for the type of measure suggested by the hon. Gentleman. We are considering the possible scope for further job creation and community industry measures.

Mr. Cryer: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is hypocritical of the Opposition to talk of unemployment in this way, because it is their capitalist system which has failed and which is producing unemployment? Does my right hon. Friend accept that the real solution is to apply Socialist remedies, including direct investment by the National Enterprise Board, control of the banks, and selective import controls?

Mr. Booth: The crisis in the capitalist system has a major bearing on the level of unemployment in any mixed economy, including our own. Although the control of imports is a matter for the Secretary of


State for Trade, it is one in which I have a deep interest because of its direct effects on employment, and therefore I am committed continually to discuss it with my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Hayhoe: Does the Secretary of State agree that the full-blooded Socialist measures advocated by his hon. Friends below the gangway are damaging and make worse the prospects for the future? Would it not be better if the Government gave realistic estimates of future unemployment, rather than the rosy forecasts that they have made?

Mr. Booth: I want to be as generous as I can to the hon. Gentleman, but his proposition is hypothetical. We have never yet tried full-blooded Socialist measures in this country, but we can be certain that our mixed economy does not protect or guarantee full employment.

Barry Docks (Dispute)

Mr. Ridley: asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will visit the banana wharf at Barry Docks to discuss the dock work dispute.

Mr. Booth: No, Sir. The independent Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service is the appropriate body to give such assistance as may be required by the parties concerned in industrial disputes.

Mr. Ridley: If the Secretary of State will not go to Barry, will he have a word with Mr. Jack Jones and ask him to explain to the banana seven why they have lost their jobs to the dockers, and why the Government are insisting on introducing a Bill to make sure that sort of thing goes on to a much greater extent in the future?

Mr. Booth: The hon. Gentleman, who serves on the Dock Work Regulation Bill Committee, is aware that the Bill will introduce, in respect of what is defined as dock work, a test that is different from that which applied in the Barry case. That is one of the reasons why we are introducing the Bill—to ensure that difficulties such as those at Barry do not arise again.
As for talking with Mr. Jack Jones about the effect of present dock work regulations and the introduction of new legislation, I gladly assure the hon. Gentleman that I have talked to Mr. Jones at

length on the issue, and I shall do so again should it be necessary.

Mr. McCartney: Will my right hon. Friend take into account the fact that the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) has either been deliberately misleading the House and the Dock Work Regulation Bill Committee or he is badly misinformed? The fact is that our members at Barry—members of the Transport and General Workers' Union—accept that the Bill and the existing scheme have nothing to do with the situation at Barry. Is my right hon. Friend aware that Geest Industries Limited has made a statement to the union which confirms the statements that I made—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Time for Questions to the Prime Minister is now being taken.

Mr. Booth: I am aware of the matters mentioned by my hon. Friend. The Transport and General Workers' Union was very conscious at national level of the problem created by the determination shown at Barry, and went to considerable lengths in negotiation to try to safeguard the employment position of those displaced by the decision.

Mr. Ridley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the Minister's unsatisfactory reply, I beg to give notice that I intend to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible opportunity.

Oral Answers to Questions — CBI AND TUC

Mr. Norman Lamont: asked the Prime Minister when he next intends to meet the CBI and the TUC.

Mr. Tim Renton: asked the Prime Minister when he next proposes to meet the TUC and the CBI.

Mr. Molloy: asked the Prime Minister what arrangements he has to meet the TUC and CBI.

Mr. George Rodgers: asked the Prime Minister when he next intends to meet the TUC and the CBI.

Mr. James Lamond: asked the Prime Minister if he will be meeting the TUC and the CBI in the near future.

The Prime Minister (Mr. James Callaghan): I hope to meet both the TUC and the CBI shortly after the recess.

Mr. Lamont: Will the Prime Minister in fairness explain why the tax bill on everybody—regardless of whether he belongs to a union, regardless of the wage increases he has had, and regardless of whether he accepts Government's policy—should be determined by bargaining, with the TUC, when the Prime Minister said two years ago that if the social contract broke down we should drift into fascism? Did he have in mind the sort of "corporate Statism" that we have now?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman seems to be repeating some of the arguments used in the debate yesterday. I have no doubt that the general debate will go on. As regards the relationship between wages and the Budget, I should think that even the hon. Gentleman would acknowledge that no Chancellor of the Exchequer can construct his Budget today unless he takes account of the likely movement of wages. Therefore, if he is a wise man, as he is—and that leads me to a later answer that I shall be asked to give—he will seek to achieve an understanding and agreement with those who are bargaining about wages.
As for the corporate State, I thought that my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council destroyed that hoary old argument in a brilliant speech yesterday.

Mr. Molloy: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that to combat inflation we require the full co-operation of the TUC and the CBI, and that it does not help if in one week Opposition spokesmen, including the Leader of the Opposition, agree with that and the next week return to their damaging, silly policy of indulging in fruitless trade union bashing?

The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend, but on this as on so many other matters the Opposition, I regret, are not only divided but have a split mind. It is only a few weeks since the right hon. Lady would a wooing go. I thought that she was making good progress with the trade unions. Who could fail to respond to her charm? [Interruption.] Hon. Members speak for themselves. It was only last night, when the matter was put to the test and we saw the reactions of

Conservative Back Benchers, with their acidulated dislike of the trade unions, that we realised that her wooing was bound to fail.

Mr. Renton: If the Chancellor of the Exchequer is such a wise man, why did he make the extraordinarily ill-timed remark last night that he might have to be satisfied with a second-best incomes policy? Is not that abandoning the country to the likes of Kenneth Gill, the Communist member of the TUC General Council, who has already rejected the 3 per cent, wage deal out of hand?

The Prime Minister: It is the right of the Opposition to pursue these questions. I do not dispute that. But I suggest to hon. Members on both sides of the House that if we are to attempt to overcome inflation, and try to reduce it to half the level that it is this year, we should now permit a period of reflection and discussion between the TUC and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and others, in order that these questions may be worked out without the House intervening, until the matter comes back to the House in the light of the reports that my right hon. Friend will be making in due course.

Mr. Rodgers: When my right hon. Friend next meets the TUC and the CBI, will he focus attention on the problems of the textile industry? Is he aware that the labour force in that industry has diminished by over 30 per cent, during the last nine years, and does he agree that the case for stringent import controls is now overwhelming?

The Prime Minister: I know the difficulties of the textile industry. Indeed, only yesterday my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Industry and Trade met the TUC Textile Clothing and Footwear Industries Committee and had a full discussion about this matter. The Committee pressed its view that imports of some of these items should be cut, but went on to say that it thought the Government's actions on imports to date had been helpful. In my view, it would be best to continue to keep these matters under review and seek to help the industry as much as possible in other ways.

Mrs. Thatcher: Now that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced what he himself called the "second-best


pay strategy", will the Prime Minister say whether any items other than tax reliefs are negotiable against pay increases?

The Prime Minister: I do not think that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a second-best policy. [Interruption.] I was here listening, and some of those who are shouting were not. What my right hon. Friend said was that in certain circumstances he might be forced back to a second-best policy. I suggest to Opposition Members that that is better than getting boxed in, as did the former Leader of the Conservative Party some two years ago, to the destruction of his Government. Nothing is negotiable in this sense. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has to understand what the trade union movement, in so far as it can speak with a united voice, intends to do, on incomes and wages claims this year, so that he may adjust his Budget accordingly. That will require a period of detailed study, and I hope that will be done without too much publicity.

Mrs. Thatcher: In that case, to use the Prime Minister's words, what does "adjusting his Budget accordingly" include?

The Prime Minister: "Adjusting his Budget accordingly" means that he will make due allowances for any alterations he has to make.

Mr. Thorpe: As one who hopes that the Chancellor's initiative will succeed, may I ask the Prime Minister whether the fact that the Leader of the House yesterday ruled out any policy backed by statute and the Chancellor indicated, within one week, that he would probably have to fall back on a second-best policy, means that the Government's options have been dramatically narrowed?

The Prime Minister: No, I do not think that is so. Some trade union leaders reacted immediately to the situation as they saw it, and some of their members are also reacting. But if we are to overcome inflation in this country we shall have to do it by the voluntary co-operation of everyone. The Government cannot paddle this canoe by themselves. Everyone must lend a hand if we are to succeed.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

Mr. Blaker: asked the Prime Minister whether he will dismiss the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: asked the Prime Minister if he will dismiss the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The Prime Minister: No.

Mr. Blaker: In that case, will the Prime Minister ask the Chancellor to pay attention to the debates on this year's Finance Bill? Is the Prime Minister aware that had the Chancellor listened to what was said by the Conservative Party, during last year's debates, about the impact of the 25 per cent, rate of VAT and the damaging effect of capital transfer tax on small businesses and farms, he might have avoided putting a number of people out of work and the humiliating climb down that he has made this year?

The Prime Minister: That is not the case. My right hon. Friend said that he believed the rate of VAT should be reduced, and I think the reduction has been generally welcomed throughout the country. Rates of tax are often generable up and down and I dare say this one will be, too.

Mr. Les Huckfield: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is time more attention was focused on the CBI and some of its members, and also on the niggardly investment response that it bas made to the tax concessions already received? Is not the most fundamental issue facing the country the lack of economic growth?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I agree with my hon. Friend's last point. But the biggest single disincentive to investment is inflation and, clearly, the counter-inflation strategy is a necessary precondition to investment recovery. The assurances of the tax allowances and stock relief will serve to bolster business confidence. I have seen a recent report that business confidence is beginning to return, but it is early days yet. I think that the Budget may have helped that.

Mr. Roberts: Returning to the Chancellor's pay offer, does the Prime Minister think it fair and just to the country, including trade unions, that only the tax reliefs part of any wage bargain should be subject to statute, and that the limitation on wage increases should not be subject to statute and, therefore, unenforceable?

The Prime Minister: We cannot apply strict logic in this area, if we do not want to fall into the errors that the previous Conservative Government fell into. Unless there were a real corporate State it would be impossible permanently to regulate wages and incomes by statute. That is the difference between tax allowances and rises in income.

Mr. Kinnock: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is a pretty daft idea to consider dismissing my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the request comes from Wales or England, Blackpool or Conway? Given that we have a deadline for the fixing of a new pay arrangement announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in his Budget Statement of early June, it is necessary to carry it through with the full assent of the TUC and individual trade union leaders. Consequently, must not all options be re-opened, so that we can have a genuinely renegotiated policy, not within the parameters that have been rather rigidly set by my right hon. Friend?

The Prime Minister: I recognise the force of my hon. Friend's point that what is necessary if we are to carry the work people with us is a voluntary agreement. So far I go with him. But my right hon. Friend the Chancellor pointed out the limits within which he could give reliefs if we are to achieve both his and the TUC's aim. The TUC's aim is not different—it is to reduce inflation by at least one half during the current year. That is the overriding factor. My right hon. Friend pointed out in his Budget Statement the parameters within which this could be done, but in the end the House will have to decide, in the light of the success or otherwise of the discussions with the TUC—and I hope that they will be successful. If the TUC comes forward with other propositions, my right hon. Friend and others will want to examine them, but that will not destroy the basic

arithmetic of how to cut inflation down by half this year.

Oral Answers to Questions — CRIME

Mr. Teddy Taylor: asked the Prime Minister if he will recommend the establishment of a Royal Commission to consider the increase in crime.

The Prime Minister: No. The Government recognise and share the widespread concern about crime, but the development of effective counter-measures is a better answer than an investigation by a Royal Commission.

Mr. Taylor: Does the Prime Minister—a former Home Secretary—agree that the absence of alternative effective counter-measures and the dramatic upsurge in the number of crimes of violence more than justify a reappraisal of policy? If the Prime Minister is not prepared to agree to the appointment of a Royal Commission, will he invite the Home Secretary to initiate a study into vandalism, which appears to be becoming a major social disease?

The Prime Minister: The only reason I cannot agree to the appointment of a Royal Commission is that it would be more likely to examine causes than entirely new remedies that are unknown to all of us. It is useful that the police service has been increased substantially during the past 12 months, both in Scotland and in England and Wales. Many other factors are being studied. I agree that the increase in the number of crimes of violence is a disturbing commentary on our society, but I am not sure that a Royal Commission would remove those causes. They lie much deeper in our society—namely, in the attitudes in individual families. I should like to see a greater sense of responsibility in that regard, to enable us to deal more effectively, in the home and at the beginning, with our children. It may be lack of responsibility in that direction that causes violence and vandalism.

Mr. Whitehead: Without embarking on anything as grandiose as a Royal Commission, does my right hon. Friend agree that we need a modest committee inquiry to look at the law on identification in view of apprehension about some alleged criminals in recent trials?

The Prime Minister: I know to what my hon. Friend is referring, but I should be grateful if he would table a Question on the matter to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. I have not gone into the matter.

Mr. Whitelaw: Does the Prime Minister agree that in dealing with the worrying feature of juvenile crime the Government's attitude to the future working of the Children and Young Persons Act is of crucial importance? If he agrees with that view, will he ensure that the Government reply urgently to the Report of the Select Committee on Expenditure, which the Government so far have not done? Does he not agree that there has already been an overlong delay in making a reply?

The Prime Minister: I shall look into that matter. I am not informed about it. I was responsible for that Act. I think that the weakness in the Act is that successive Governments have not been able to devote to that measure the resources that were promised when it went through the House. I believe that the principles of the Bill are still right. I shall look into the point.

TRANSPORT POLICY (REVIEW)

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Shore—transport policy statement.

Mr. Walter Johnson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I understand that the policy review document has been in the hands of the Press for the last 36 hours but has not been available to hon. Members, which is grossly discourteous. Will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment postpone his statement until we have had a chance to look at the document, which I understand will be available at 4 o'clock this afternoon?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order for me. It is a matter for the Government Front Bench.

Mr. Burden: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not a ridiculous situation that members of the Press have this morning been telephoning hon. Members asking for comments on the document and that, when we have replied that

we have not yet seen the statement, they have offered to give us particulars?

Mr. Speaker: There is nothing new in that, but I hope that those responsible have heard the exchanges in the House.

Mr. Tebbit: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. With great respect, surely the fact that documents of this kind are placed in the hands of persons outside the House to read, so that they have an advantage of having read the material before the Minister makes a statement, and the fact that the document has not been given to hon. Members brings this House into contempt, ridicule or disrepute. Therefore, surely it is a matter for you, Mr. Speaker, to rule upon.

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point, but I do not share the opinion that it brings the House into ridicule. I have too high an opinion of this House to believe that a custom that has gone on for a very long time is necessarily wrong. I am not seeking to defend it, but I know that when I was sitting in another part of the House I was often asked for my views on a document which was about to be published in the afternoon. However, I believe that hon. Members have a right to be given a statement by the Minister and will be able to pursue this matter when they have heard him.

Mr. Spriggs: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Back Benchers in particular look to you for some protection. Since you are the person you are, Mr. Speaker, I believe that we are right to appeal to you for some protection now. For many weeks we have awaited this important document. It now appears that the Secretary of State is to make a statement about the matter this afternoon, and hon. Members who have a direct interest in transport matters—and, indeed, all hon. Members—have not seen the document. In other words, we have seen nothing on which we can base our questions in order to probe the Secretary of State's statement this afternoon. I believe that it is now time for us to call upon you, Speaker, for your protection.

Mr. Peyton: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I suggest that the


House is in great difficulty over this matter. There is no challenge to the fact that as a practice the Press receives advance copies of these documents; indeed, that has been the practice for many years. However, on this occasion I understand that the document has been given a very much wider circulation and has been in the hands of almost everybody interested in transport policy. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO."] This constitutes a legion of pressure groups. If that is not so, I hope that the Government will publish a list of those people who have had access to this document before Members of the House of Commons have had such access. It is well known, particularly in these times, that it is an increasing practice for the Press, television and the rest to ask Members of Parliament for their instant reactions to documents of this nature. We are put at a great disadvantage if we are not given a chance to study such documents. Therefore, I believe that there is a good deal in what has been said by hon. Members on both sides of the House.

Mr. Speaker: I have listened with concern to the points put forward by hon. Members on both sides of the House. I regard it as a very serious duty of mine that I am here to guard the privileges of the House. I shall examine the matter—I cannot say any more than that—because I am very sensitive to the trust reposed in me by the House. However, I ask the House to remember that we are dealing with a long-established custom. Therefore, I hope that the House will now be prepared to listen to the statement by the Secretary of State for the Environment.

Mr. loan Evans: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I inform the House that the document in issue is now available in the Vote Office.

Mr. Crouch: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not wish to labour this point, but in my experience in this House I have never before been put in a position in which I have been telephoned by a Lobby correspondent asking me to make a statement on television about a forthcoming document and adding that, if I require a briefing, he can give it to me because he has the document and I have not. It is almost a contempt of the House in respect of the position of a Member of Parliament. I

know that you know that, Mr. Speaker, but I wish to underline it.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. It has been the custom in this House in the last two years for the SNP to be given a copy of a ministerial statement before it is made, except on those occasions where such documents have been restricted to Privy Councillors. On this occasion no such copy has been made available to my party. Will you also examine this matter when you come to look at the points made in this exchange?

Mr. Speaker: That is one of the usual courtesies between the normal channels, but I am quite sure that it has nothing to do with me.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: Would not this be an ideal matter to be referred to the Select Committee on Procedure, if the right hon. Gentleman the Lord President of the Council honours the promise given by his predecessor to table a motion on this matter before the House rises?

Mr. Speaker: I remember hearing exchanges when my predecessor was in the Chair when a devolution document had been handed to the Press and when hon. Members raised similar points of order. I now call Mr. Shore to make the statement.

The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Peter Shore): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the review of transport policy.
I have in my hands the document sent to the Press and I shall read the note attached:
Not for publication, broadcast or use before 16.00 hrs. on 13th April 1976.
We are publishing today a consultation document in two volumes, copies of which are now available in the Vote Office. It contains, I believe, a thorough and balanced—although still incomplete—examination of the major issues arising across the whole field of inland transport affairs. It covers the main modes of transport, both public and private. The document represents the first stage of a comprehensive review—the first of its kind for 10 years. The review represents only the Government's preliminary


consideration. Contrary to some assertions that have been made, this is, in fact, a truly consultative document.
It is, I believe, essential that we get our future policy right, for transport touches the interests of every citizen of the country and is of central importance to their daily lives. The next stage is, therefore, to consult a wide range of interests, including transport industries and organisations, management and unions, local government and the public. Not until these consultations are concluded will it be possible for the Government to take a firmer view and to reach decisions on the future course of transport policy.
The review was undertaken in order to take a fresh look at the major trends which have emerged during the past 10 years and the problems that have flowed from them. I refer particularly to the growing ownership and use of cars, the decline in the use of public transport, the impact of roads and vehicles on the environment, the energy situation, and the growing calls of transport and other services on public expenditure.
It is now generally accepted that the provision of transport cannot be left solely to market forces. What we have already and must continue to develop is a managed market, but one which takes stronger account of the economic, social and environmental objectives of our time.
These objectives can be summarised as follows: first, we want an efficient transport system—one which gives value for money and makes the best use of skills and resources. Second, in the passenger field, we must provide adequate mobility for the large minority of people who are and will remain without access to a car. In our view, the Government must accept responsibility for maintaining a strong public transport network, though we shall need to be flexible in the means by which it is provided. Third, we must give higher priority to enhancing both the urban and the rural environment in which people live, and protecting them against the ill effects of transport noise, fumes and visual intrusion. Fourth, we must, within the context of these objectives, give the used of transport as much freedom of choice as possible, coupled with improvement of standards.
To achieve these objectives we need a coherent, rigorous and on going analysis of the various transport options that are available. This is essential if we are to establish the right priorities and make sensible decisions on the balance of transport expenditure as between, for example, road and rail, trains and buses, subsidies and investment. In this analysis, taxation—and other Government-imposed costs—and subsidies will have to be considered together if we are to achieve sensible and equitable pricing policies for the different means of transport.
There are many questions which the policy review provokes, but I should like to draw the attention of the House to just a few which seem to me to be of particular importance. First, there is the priority accorded in the document lo the maintenance of adequate bus services: How is this to be done, and what is a reasonable balance between fares and subsidies?
Second, rail. Let me assure the House that I have no bias in favour of either road or rail. Each mode of transport has its advantages and disadvantages, and the public, as well as most of us here in this House, are users of both.
The Government have no plans for railway line closures. Some may prove necessary in the future, but I see no case for substantial—let alone massive—changes in our present rail network. I should certainly like to see more freight moved by rail where this is appropriate, but a massive switch from road to rail or the inland waterways does not, on the evidence available, seem attainable. The document does not propose to cut out passenger subsidies but recognises that open-ended subsidies for passenger services cannot continue. It also takes the view that permanent subsidies for freight, whether by road or rail, are not justified. The more that can be done to reduce costs, obviously, the less it will be necessary to increase fares and charges.
There is also the sensitive question of further restraint on cars in congested urban areas. The document poses the possibilities of greater physical restriction and promises a separate consultative paper on control over private nonresidential parking.
The consultative document concludes by putting forward a proposal for a national transport council which will


bring together the transport industries, management and trade unions, local government and consumers, in a new high-level organisation under ministerial chairmanship. The proposed council would not be an executive agency but it would certainly not be a talking shop. It would be an authoritative body, fully capable of assisting the Government in keeping transport objectives under continuing and open review.
Finally, a word about the consultation procedure. I think it would be valuable to have a fairly extensive period of discussion. We shall have to press ahead faster in some areas of policy than in others. In particular, we shall need to reach a view about any changes in the pattern of transport expenditure in time for them to take effect in 1977–78.
I have decided to extend the time for consultation beyond the mid-June deadline proposed in the document, until the end of July. I hope that by then those with a major interest in our transport system will have had an opportunity to send me, or the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales, their comments on the document. I hope to arrange for those interests to discuss the review with me or my fellow Ministers, or with the Department.
I hope, too, that it will be possible for this House to have an opportunity of debating transport policy before the summer recess, so that the Government can take full account of the views of the House.
Given the scope and importance of transport policy, discussions and conclusions will inevitably be an ongoing affair. It will be my intention to make a further statement to the House after the Summer Recess.

Mr. Raison: May I first welcome the Secretary of State to his great new office? I am bound to say that he seems to have come in rather at the deep end.
As one who received the consultative document shortly after one o'clock lunch-time today, I suppose that I can reiterate the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton). Our objection is not that the Press should have received advance copies, because that is the normal custom, but that outside bodies should have received copies of it before Parliament received them.
We thank the Secretary of State for extending the period of consultation until the end of July, but I suggest that the House should debate this document well before that time.
I congratulate the previous Secretary of State on the literacy of the document and, perhaps more important, on the fact that a good deal in the document is realistic—for example, concerning public expenditure and in abandoning the biased view of rail against road taken in both the 1974 Labour Party manifestos.
Is the Secretary of State aware that we note with considerable interest the views that it is a pipe dream to think of large-scale transfer of freight from road to rail, that rail freight must pay its way in due course, and that the Government have no option but to check the increase in concessionary fares?
Is the Secretary of State aware that we share the view that the railways need to know where they stand, but will he tell us what scale of productivity improvements he has in mind and whether the capital investment proposals are compatible with the present size of the network? Will the Secretary of State accept, further, that we need a much more detailed breadown of rail costs, by both service and track, than we have been given in the consultation document? Is he aware that we on our side doubt the wisdom of piling up additional costs on to road haulage, as it will mean both higher prices in the shops and less competitive exports?
Is the Secretary of State aware that we accept the great concern expressed in the document for those who have no car but consider that changes in the licensing system could play a significant part in remedying this, especially in rural areas? Is he aware that we note with regret the reiterated call for more public ownership in road transport? But I also note with interest the revealing comment, in paragraph 8.14 of Volume 1 of the consultation document "Transport Policy", that
In the present national economic situation, however, the upheaval of a major reorganisation in a service so important to the efficiency of industry would not be appropriate.
When would it be appropriate? When will efficiency not matter?

Mr. Shore: In reply to the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison), I shall of course look further into the general complaint that has been made about the availability of documents to outside bodies. My own view consistently has been to put the interests of this House first, and that is what I shall always seek to do.
On the hon. Gentleman's second point about the extension of the consultation period to the end of July, that seemed to me to be necessary, and it would be helpful, I believe, if my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House agrees, for us to have a debate before the end of the consultation period or whenever both sides of the House found it convenient to arrange one.
As for the specific matters which the hon. Gentleman itemised, including those that he welcomed, all that I can say is that we are dealing with a document which inevitably and deliberately is a consultative document. Most of the chapters in it close with certain questions which are put arising out of the analysis in the chapters concerned. Therefore, there is considerable scope for discussion which must now take place, not only with the British Railways Board, which will cover such matters as any expected productivity improvements, the extent to which it is possible to transfer freight from road to rail, and many other matters.
As for the hon. Gentleman's point about the charges on road hauliers, it is a generally accepted view that users of roads should pay at least the costs which they inflict upon the transport system, and part of the evidence of the document is that there are classes of heavy vehicles which are not doing that at present.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his new post. Is he aware that this is possibly the most detailed and best researched consultative document ever to be produced by any Government—[HON. MEMBERS: "How do you know?"] I am prepared to tell the House if you wish, Mr. Speaker, but if I do I shall immediately be ruled out of order—[HON. MEMBERS: "Have you seen it? "] Is my right hon. Friend aware, further, that I was the chairman of an independent transport study commission which contributed a very well documented

piece of research which I understand forms the basis of some of the conclusions of this document? Is he aware, also, that the test by which this document will be judged is the success it may have in carrying out the Labour Party's transport policy, and that is a co-ordination and integration of all transport services? Is my right hon. Friend not convinced that he needs a much stronger co-ordinating and integrating central agency, which was recommended both by the TUC and by my own Socialist Commentary working group report?

Mr. Shore: I am sure that the House will agree when it has studied this document that it deserves the adjectives which my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) suggested—that is to say, it is a detailed document and one which has been very well researched. I also willingly pay tribute to the very good study which was made during our period in opposition by Socialist Commentary on transport questions with which my hon. Friend was personally connected.
On the major question of the extent to which we need a co-ordinating agency and the kind of functions that it would have, the argument in the document requires serious consideration because the major point made in the document is that it would be wrong to transfer to a non-elected body like an agency sensitive and major decisions affecting transport policy at both national and local levels. Although I am not unwilling to receive submissions on the matter, I believe that these are quite powerful arguments.

Mr. Stephen Ross: I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his new appointment. Does he appreciate that for some of us lesser mortals it is difficult to comment on a document that we, as opposed to others, have not seen? But is he aware that it is not as comprehensive—that is my understanding from telephone calls that I have received—as many of us would have liked and that, for instance, I gather that coastal shipping and cycling are dealt with in a somewhat summary manner?
Although I welcome the extension of the time limit, does not the right hon. Gentleman think that six months would have been a more appropriate period and is that not the period of time which


applied to the Airports Authority Bill last autumn?
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware, as his predecessor certainly was, of the differing opinions about traffic forecasting records, and is he prepared to set up an independent body, possibly a Select Committee of this House, to look at this subject?

Mr. Shore: It is up to the House itself to decide whether a Select Committee is required. I think that the hon. Gentleman will find mat the second of the two documents deals specifically with the question that he raised.
As for the document not being as comprehensive as he would have liked, I agree that it says a little but not a great deal about coastal shipping and that perhaps there is not as much about cycling as hon. Members who come to the House on cycles would wish to see. But all these questions and others which are not properly dealt with in the document are entirely open for people to raise in the consultation that we envisage.
I agree that six months is not a very long time. But what we envisage is, first, a period of consultation up to the recess. We expect that many matters will be the subject of continuing and ongoing consultation and debate.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: In addition to consulting the Secretary of State for Wales on the document, does my right hon. Friend agree that consultation in Wales with local authorities, trade unions and other interests should be channelled through my right hon. and learned Friend and the Welsh Office in view of the different nature of the transport problem in Wales?

Mr. Shore: Yes, of course. There are differences in Wales. However, I can assure my right hon. Friend that in preparing the document we have had lengthy consultations with the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales and, of course, it has their approval.

Mr. Donald Stewart: May I wish the right hon. Gentleman well in his new post and welcome his Department's first attempt at an integrated transport policy? Will he bear in mind that in Scotland at any rate we welcome the assurance that there will be no rail closures, and will he repel the pressure from road

lobbies which would prevent the full use of our rail network? Does he accept that transport is not a consumer need which can be cut back in terms of the cash shortage, because on many occasions results are produced which are irreversible?

Mr. Shore: Certainly I accept that transport is responsive to the general needs of the economy, especially of industry and of people. But we cannot and must not ignore the financial restraints within which any transport policy has to operate at present and for some time ahead. Therefore, we have to consider carefully what are the best possible modes of transport to be used.

Mr. Wigley: I welcome the right hon. Gentleman's emphasis on co-ordination. However, may I take up the point made by the right hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes)? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in paragraph 12.17 of the paper it is said that co-ordination in Wales will be undertaken by the Assembly? In light of the fact that coordination is the basis for a national transport council, will that council cover Wales as well or will the co-ordination work be undertaken by the directly-elected Assemblies in Wales and Scotland?

Mr. Shore: These are proposals. I would have thought perhaps a final answer to the hon. Gentleman's question will lie in the firming-up of our views about the nature and extent of devolution in Wales and Scotland. But I believe that it is perfectly possible for many transport decisions to come within the purview and consideration of the Welsh Assembly while retaining, as it were, a United Kingdom view of the total needs of our Island.

Mr. Palmer: My right hon. Friend has said that the Government have no plans for rail closures, a statement which will be noted with great interest in South-West England, but has British Rail any proposals for closures? It is the confusion between the Government's intentions and those of British Rail that has given rise to much resentment in the past.

Mr. Shore: I said that we had no plans for rail closures. The proposals of the British Railways Board, particularly under its new management, are not


matters about which I can answer now, but I will, of course, consult the chairman.

Mr. Crouch: Will the right hon. Gentleman make himself or his Department available to representations from railway travellers' associations and from commuters, of whom there are several thousand in my constituency? I am particularly concerned at paragraph 72 of Volume 1 of the document which suggests that within five years from now subsidies for commuters travelling from outer suburban areas will be removed altogether. In my constituency today some commuters pay over £500 a year to get to and from their work and they are near to breaking point. They simply cannot find more money in the family "kitty". Will he bear that in mind?

Mr. Shore: I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making, but we have to balance the various claims for subsidies for various parts of our public transport system. The House would wish to consider very carefully the relevant chapters in the document before coming to a view as to the claims to which we should give the greatest response. I shall certainly be willing to receive representations from travellers' associations about which the hon. Gentleman spoke.

Mr. Spriggs: Whilst congratulating my right hon. Friend on achieving the high office which he holds today, may I ask him why the document was not made available to Members of the House of Commons at the same time as the Press received it? Further, what part have consultations with the trade unions played in the framing of this consultative document?

Mr. Shore: On my hon. Friend's second point—consultation with the trade unions—there has been a meeting with the Transport Industries Committee of the Trades Union Congress and there have been continuing negotiations with different transport unions. But I would certainly accept that this is not what he, and I, would understand by consultation in the sense that I know my hon. Friend would wish to see. But we now envisage consultations taking place, and doing so in a genuine and serious way.
On my hon. Friend's first point, may I say again that I personally insisted that

the document should be made available to the House at half-past three, at the very moment that I stood up, which I understand has long been the practice in this House. I have initiated no new procedures as far as the Press is concerned except to insist that the Press embargo should operate from four o'clock.

Mr. Fry: Does the Secretary of State realise that perhaps some of the most controversial proposals in the document are those relating to the charging and control of private car parks? Is he further aware that this is likely to cause more problems than it solves unless sufficient regard is paid to the very considerable needs of the many commercial undertakings and the need for—and this I must stress—a very real improvement in public transport in most urban areas?

Mr. Shore: I do not know how far the hon. Gentleman's view will be shared widely in the House. He will want to consult the second volume of the consultative document before he comes to any clear views on it, but I would have thought myself that there was an overwhelming case, on congestion-cost grounds, for charging those who have access to private car parks, just as we have charging in our streets and elsewhere where public facilities are in use.

Mr. Walter Johnson: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that what the railway unions are complaining about is that they were not properly consulted in the drawing-up of this document? I am pleased to hear my right hon. Friend say this afternoon that he really believes in consultation, rather in than just drawing people together and telling them what has been decided. I am very pleased to have this assurance and I hope that it will be completely fulfilled.

Mr. Shore: I certainly give that assurance. I do believe in consultation just as strongly as I believe in being courteous to the House.

Mr. Warren: The Secretary of State has offered us consultation. Is he not aware that a great deal of action is required immediately? What resources is he prepared to transfer now to help those pensioners who cannot afford even subsidised fares. Action is required now, not in three or six months' time.

Mr. Shore: The hon. Gentleman will know very well—and if he does not he will find some of the answers in the document—that very substantial sums are being made available in the form of concessionary fares. That has been one of the greatest increases in transport public expenditure generally in the last few years. There are indications that we wish to look further into this whole question. We have to take account of the totals within which we are working.

Mrs. Dunwoody: Would the Secretary of State accept that although it is exceedingly difficult to comment now on all the proposals, even a cursory glance shows that there are many railway men who would totally reject the proposals on implementation, because they are sick and tired of people saying there are to be no more closures and then, by starving the railways of sufficient investment, making closures absolutely essential?

Mr. Shore: I assure my hon. Friend that I intend to discuss all these matters not only with the railway unions but with the British Railways Board and I shall certainly report to the House on the outcome of those discussions.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Is not the public going to be confused by the torrent of paper pouring from the Stationery Office? If mere consultation is to be the object of a document, would it not be much better when a Department issues such a consultative document to maintain the habit of making it a Green Paper, so that the status of the document is known, instead of having these documents in this confusing array of colours in which they now appear?

Mr. Shore: I think I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but I notice that on its front page this is called "A Consultation Document".

Mr. Bagier: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the basis of present thinking on transport is whether it is to be on commercial or a service criteria? Would not he agree that this is one of the basic fundamental questions which the Government have to consider? If this document is the basis of Government thinking, does it not seem to confirm the worst fears—that commuters will be expected to bear the full weight of charges within the next five years? Would not that also

have a disastrous effect on long-distance commuters, long-distance travellers, and those who use the railway as a necessity?

Mr. Shore: I do not think I can agree with my hon. Friend that the fundamental question is whether to treat transport on a commercial or on a service basis. It is a good deal more complicated than that, but clearly we have social objectives which we must seek to achieve in the context of transport policy. A great deal of the document is devoted to a discussion of precisely that question.

Mr. George Younger: While we cannot comment fully on the document because we were privileged to see it only just before the statement, could the Secretary of State give an assurance that the document is at least better than his statement, which is the biggest collection of platitudes we have heard for a very long time? Did it or did it not mean that there are to be no further rail closures? If so, is it accepted that if we are to have a rail network it has to cover the whole of the country or it is not worth having? Secondly, does it commit us to having a relaxation of the licensing rules as regards rural buses, where considerable hardship is already being caused to those who cannot afford to travel because of the increased fares?

Mr. Shore: There have been a number of statements on the question of rural buses and, indeed, rural transport over the last few weeks. I am not prepared at this stage to go further than what I said in the statement and in answer to other questions about the railways and the network involved.
Regarding the hon. Gentleman's comments on the statement, I have a feeling that they related not so much to the content and quality of the statement as to the extraordinary mood which infused the House just before I rose to make the statement.

Mr. Prescott: I trust that my right hon. Friend will give due recognition to the fact that the failure to achieve a policy of integration has been due to the lack not of analysis, but of political courage. That can be seen if we look carefully at the effects of social costs, tax advantages and the strict interpretation of profitability, which has worked to the disadvantage of the State sector compared with the private sector. I trust that my right


hon. Friend will look at the recommendations of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries, particularly regarding Freightliners and shipping. The Select Committee recommends the separation of the shipping industry from British Rail management.

Mr. Shore: I shall certainly consider what my hon. Friend said about shipping and the Select Committee's recommendation. I make the more general point that, whatever may have been said in the past about political courage in this area, I have no doubt that it is important to get the analysis as right as we can before we decide on the programme of action required.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: During the period of consultation and before the Government come to a firm decision, what guidance will the Minister give to the bus and rail organisations? Is he aware that, although there may be no cuts planned in the rail network, cuts in rail and bus services are going on and are affecting rural areas very badly at this time?

Mr. Shore: I do not accept that. Decisions have been taken about budgetary expenditure for 1976–77. What I shall be talking about with others is where there is more freedom of manoeuvre, which is the decision which affects 1977–78 and beyond.

Mr. Whitehead: Does my right hon. Friend accept that many of us wish to join in the congratulations to him with a warmer welcome than the document, which he has inherited, probably merits? Does he further accept that, looking at the figures in the document concerning the freeze on investment and the scaling down of subsidies to which reference has been made, it will be unrealistic to adhere to those figures and to talk of an 11,000-route-mile network in the mid-1980s?

Mr. Shore: I do not necessarily accept the dismal conclusions drawn by my hon. Friend from projected figures which have appeared in the Public Expenditure White Paper. Many factors are involved, including the tremendous part that improvements in efficiency and productivity can play in the overall financial performance of the railway industry.

Mr. Body: Mr. Body rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am afraid that this must be the last question on the statement.

Mr. Body: Reverting to the question put by my right hon. Friend, if it be true that certain outside organisations were privileged by having a copy of this document before the House received it, will the right hon. Gentleman specify the criteria which he adopted in deciding who should and who should not be so favoured?
Secondly, again on a matter of another kind of privilege, while all rural areas will welcome what is said in page 36 about experimental transport schemes for rural areas, will he explain how he will favour certain rural areas as opposed to others?

Mr. Shore: I am informed that a steering committee will be looking at the question to help decide which would be the more appropriate areas in which to initiate experiments. I will consider what the hon. Gentleman said in making his first point.

PROTEIN DEPOSITS AND PRIVATE STORAGE AID

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration; namely,
the failure of any Minister to inform the House of the legal effect on Commission Documents Nos. R/451/76 and R/452/76 of the House, acting pursuant to the advice given by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, passing a motion to disapprove the said Documents.
It is on record that last night, in the debate on those Commission Documents, the Minister of Agriculture, speaking not as a Back Bencher, but as the Minister at the Dispatch Box, advised the House to accept the amendment in the name of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition with the result that the motion passed by the House, and now entered in the Journal, reads:
That this House disapproves of Commission Documents Nos. R/451/76 and R/452/76 relating to Protein Deposits and Private Storage Aid Proposals.
It is inconceivable that the Minister should ask the House to take a course of action without knowing what the consequences would be if the House accepted


his advice and took that course of action. To everyone's astonishment, the right hon. Gentleman declared that he would have to consult the Government on what the effect of the motion would be.
This is a specific matter, because the request to move a motion to adjourn the House refers to a specific event—namely, the passing of that motion by the House.
It is important, because compounders will not know, until a statement is forthcoming, whether they are bound by this Regulation—a Regulation which purports to be in force already.
It is urgent that the matter should be considered because, until it is resolved, that important practical point remains in suspense. There is also an important constitutional point, which ought not to remain in suspense—namely, what is the effect of the House, not by accident in the Division Lobbies, but after due deliberation and consideration, passing such a motion on the advice of the responsible Minister?
I do not believe that it is right that the House should persevere with the normal order of business laid down for today without remedying this matter before we rise.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he thinks should have urgent consideration, namely,
the failure of any Minister to inform the House of the legal effect on Commission Documents Nos. R/451/76 and R/452/76 of the House, acting pursuant to the advice given by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, passing a motion to disapprove the said Documents.
As the House knows, under Standing Order No. 9 I am directed to take account of the several factors set out in the Order but to give no reasons for my decision.
I have given careful consideration to the representations made by the hon. Gentleman, but I have to rule that his submission does not fall within the provisions of the Standing Order, and, therefore, I cannot submit his application to the House.

Mr. Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I think that the House is

somewhat at a loss. Clearly you have ruled—we do not question your ruling in any way—on a Standing Order No. 9 application. Last night, when the debate had concluded, there was a general opinion that there should be a statement today to clarify the legal position. Obviously a number of people outside are extremely concerned about the precise legal status of these Documents—whether they are legally valid—and about the effect of the Minister's acceptance of the Opposition's amendment.

Mr. Speaker: May I interrupt the hon. Gentleman for one moment? I understand that such a statement is indeed to be forthcoming in the debate on the Adjournment, or that an opportunity will be taken then to make such a statement to the House.

Mr. Cryer: I am most grateful to you, Mr. Speaker. If you understand that there will be a statement on the Adjournment, that is, I believe, satisfactory. I was going to seek your assurance that you would use your best endeavours to prevent such a statement from being made by means of a Written Answer since the House rises tomorrow. Perhaps you could give us more detail. Since the House is approaching the Easter Recess, hon. Members who would otherwise seek to be present may miss this statement. It would give us a further indication if you could tell us precisely when it will be made.

Mr. Peyton: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. While I would in no way wish to challenge your ruling, particularly as, on this occasion, time is quite unusually not on your side, I would like to say to the Leader of the House that, while we shall welcome anything he is to say on this subject, he is not quite as acquainted with it as is his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture who has gone backwards and forwards on this subject and has got himself thoroughly familiar with it. It is for this reason that I would like to be assured that, in the event of the right hon. Gentleman not being able to satisfy the House today, perhaps the House should nerve itself for the likelihood of a statement by the Minister of Agriculture tomorrow.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): Further to the point of


order, Mr. Speaker, although not of course relating to your ruling about Standing Order No. 9, I perfectly understand that the Minister of Agriculture has a much wider knowledge of these matters, both of agriculture and of fisheries, than I have. Nevertheless, I hope that I shall be able to satisfy the House in what I say. We thought that the debate on the Motion for the Easter Adjournment would be the most appropriate time for a statement to be made and I shall certainly be making it.

Mr. Pym: I thank the Leader of the House for what he has just said. Would he say what he has to say when he opens the debate and not wait until he winds up the debate?

Mr. Foot: I was thinking of saying it when I wound up the debate, but if hon. Members prefer that I should deal with this subject when I start and then, with leave of the House, deal with the other subjects later, I shall be extremely happy to do that.

BILL PRESENTED

INDUSTRY (AMENDMENT)

Mr. Secretary Varley, supported by Mr. Secretary Benn, Mr. Secretary Millan, Mr. Secretary John Morris, Mr. Secretary Booth, Mr. Joel Barnett, Mr. Gregor Mackenzie, and Mr. Gerald Kaufman, presented a Bill to increase the limit imposed on the Secretary of State's financial assistance to industry under section 8 of the Industry Act 1972: and the same was read a First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 125.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That, at this day's Sitting, the Business of Supply may be proceeded with, though opposed, after Ten o'clock for a period of time equal to the duration of the proceedings upon the Motions in the name of the Prime Minister relating to Sittings of the House and Adjournment (Easter).— [Mr. Coleman.]

SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE

Resolved,
That this House do meet tomorrow at Eleven o'clock, that no Questions be taken after Twelve o'clock, and that at Five o'clock Mr. Speaker do adjourn the House without putting any Question.— [Mr. Foot.]

ADJOURNMENT (EASTER)

4.23 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): I beg to move,
That this House, at its rising to-morrow, do adjourn till Monday 26th April.
As I mentioned a few minutes ago, I had intended to wait until other hon. Members had raised this question before commenting upon the situation which arose in the House yesterday. However, in response to right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who wish that I should make the statement at the beginning of the debate, I am happy to do so and will do so now. I hope that the House will permit me to reply to other matters—indeed, to any comments on this matter which may arise in the debate—at the conclusion of the general debate.
The Government have, as they promised, considered their position in the light of the resolution of the House last night disapproving Documents R/451/76 and R/452/76 dealing with the incorporation of skimmed milk powder and the storage of vegetable proteins. As the House knows, these two proposals were agreed by the Council of Agriculture Ministers on 6th March although the formal adoption of R/451 has been delayed because of the need to seek an opinion from the European Parliament and because of its subsequent adverse resolution. The Government are committed to taking account of the views of this House in the conduct of negotiations in Brussels. The House expresses its views on proposed Regulations when the Select Committee recommends them for debate. On this occasion, the Select Committee recommended that a debate should take place before the adoption of the Regulations in Brussels.
In these circumstances, the Government are bound by their assurances to take account of the resolution passed last night in any future negotiations in Brussels, but it remains the fact that the Regulation has the force of law in this country by virtue of the European Communities Act. What this means in practice is that the incorporation scheme remains in effect. If the Commission presses ahead with the storage scheme


the Government remain bound by their agreement to it. If the Commission made a radically different proposal, it would, of course, be brought before the House for prior debate and the Government would take account of the views the House then expressed. However, the Government also take the view that, since a resolution passed by the House cannot be given effect in the term in which it was passed, it is necessary for the Government to provide for another occasion at an early date when the House should discuss the matter again. I shall make an announcement when the House returns after the recess.
Hon. Members may wish to comment upon this matter during the debate, but the Government obviously must return to the matter again and give the House a fresh opportunity to discuss it. I hope that this will satisfy the House.

Mr. John Peyton: If I may speak on the same terms as the right hon. Gentleman—namely, that I shall hope to intervene again later in the debate—I would like to thank him for his extremely forthcoming response. On behalf of the Opposition, I would say that we entirely accept what he has said and look forward to an early reopening of the discussion after Easter.

Mr. Douglas Jay: If I understand my right hon. Friend, he is undertaking that the House will have an opportunity to discuss this matter again. Does he mean that the House will have an opportunity to take a decision and decide one way or the other whether the Regulations are to remain in force?

Mr. Foot: I fully understand my right hon. Friend's concern on this matter. I cannot go beyond the undertaking I have given—that we will provide a fresh opportunity for a debate—at the present time. The Government will have to consider the form in which that debate should take place and whether it should take place in the form of a new Order to be placed before the House or whether it should take place in some other form. In any case, the House of Commons itself will have the chance to give its views on the matter.
We understand that the House passed a motion yesterday, but, of course, the effects of that motion conflict with the arrangements which are made under the

European Communities Act. What we have to do in our future discussion is to try to resolve those difficulties. That is what I have promised. We will have a further statement after the recess on the matter and an opportunity for the House to debate the question.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: I take it that the purpose of a renewed debate, with all that we know of the right hon. Gentleman, will not be to secure from the House a reversal of its decision last night. That would be quite improper. I hope that it will enable the House to consider further the situation in which it finds itself as a result of any conflict and to explore whether there are, within our present circumstances, ways in which that conflict can be resolved in a way satisfactory to the House.

Mr. Foot: I perfectly understand what the right hon. Gentleman says, but no one knows better than he that, under the provisions of the European Communities Act, decisions may be made in Brussels which cannot be upset by some of the decisions made by the House of Commons. That is precisely the dilemma in which we are placed. The Government are saying that, in view of the decision of the House yesterday, which we are of course bound to respect, we believe that it would be proper for the House to discuss the matter further. The Government have not yet decided the form which that discussion would take, but every hon. Member would be able to make up his mind according to the manner in which the Government presented it to the House.

Mr. Bob Cryer: Is my right hon. Friend saying in a straightforward way that, whatever Parliament decides, Brussels now rules in this and, no doubt, many other matters? Can he state that clearly so that it can be made plain to people outside that the only way in which Parliament can regain some authority in this sort of matter is by getting out of the Community?

Mr. Foot: I think that I would require further notice of that question before I could make any declaration on the subject now. It might lead to some further consequences if I were to make a declaration in the spirit in which my hon. Friend invites me to do it.
I am not saying that at all. As most people know, the passage of the European Communities Act raises difficulties for motions which are subsequently passed by this House. Somehow these matters have to be resolved. My hon. Friend has suggested one solution, but we must search for other solutions too.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): Order. I would remind hon. Members that the Lord President said that he would make this statement and speak again later. We are really discussing the Easter Adjournment now. We cannot have a series of Question Times in addition to what we have already had.

4.32 p.m.

Mr. John Stonehouse: The motion before the House is that we should adjourn until Monday 26th April. There are strong reasons for opposing an Adjournment for that length of time. The first is the serious situation at British Leyland, which threatens to undermine one of the biggest investments that the State has made in the car industry and to which apparently it is committed.
The situation at British Leyland is that a small group of workers with a particular interest in bringing their earnings up to the level of some others in the industry are holding the whole of the industry to ransom. This problem of leap-frogging—the envy factor—in trade unionism is one of the root causes of the problems of British industry today and has caused tie problems of wage inflation without increasing productivity—points which have been argued over and over again in this House.
But we now face the serious prospect of the Government having to adhere to the decision, which they have made clear several times, that, if the workers in British Leyland do not make a success of that industry and bring its productivity up to the level of that of our principal competitors, they may have to reconsider their investment. If that were the case, there would be disastrous consequences not only for an essential part of British industry but for all the component suppliers and those who depend upon it. I therefore hope that we will reconsider our position in the light of

the British Leyland dispute. If that dispute were to continue during the Easter Recess, the House might have to be reconvened to consider its effect.
Another point that we need to consider is the announcement by the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection yesterday that the overseas depreciation of sterling is having a serious effect on domestic prices, in that, for every 5 per cent, drop in sterling's value, within 12 months and possibly sooner, domestic prices will rise by between 1 and 1½ per cent.
The pound has been devalued by over 50 per cent, against almost all other currencies since 1964, but the rate of the devaluation is now far more serious than at any other time during the past 12 years. In the last month, the pound's value has dropped by 10 per cent. Using the Secretary of State's own analysis, which may be optimistic from her point of view, one assumes that that will be translated into a 2 or 3 per cent, increase in domestic prices. That is just one month's sterling devaluation, which will be reflected within the next 12 months, possibly sooner, in a 2 or 3 per cent, increase in domestic prices.
This is without taking account of all the other inflationary factors in our economy. It is acknowledged by the Government that this continuing depreciation of sterling will have serious inflationary effects on top of all the others with which we have to contend. If sterling continues lo decline as it is doing, the House should not adjourn. It should be available to hear an up-to-date report from the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to decide what should be done about it.
I turn now to another reason why the House might consider it inappropriate to adjourn. A very important Early-Day Motion has just been tabled by the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. Steel), supported by other hon. Members, calling for the resignation of the Director of Public Prosecutions. This arises primarily out of the Peter Hain case, about which the House is well informed.
It would be valuable to the House to quote what Mr. Hain himself said in the Sunday Times last weekend, when he


said that there was definitely a misjudgment by the DPP in his case:
There is considerable pressure on witnesses to help the police, to do their best to make an identification. Crucially, most witnesses come expecting to see the thief. After all, the witnesses think the police must have the right man to bother to arrange a parade at all.
He went on to say that, as a public figure, he had the advantage of being able to appeal in the Press and on television—particularly 1TN—for witnesses to come forward.
As a result, he says, the
key defence witness came forward: the 15-year-old boy, Terry MacLaren. When he saw my face on television, he knew his fellow schoolboys had wrongly identified me, and he approached us with evidence totally contradicting them.
It is now widely believed that, if Mr. Hain had not been a person in the public eye and therefore able to appear on television to make this appeal, Terry MacLaren would not have come forward. As a result, the case would have been stacked against Mr. Hain and no doubt he would have been found guilty.
This experience draws attention to the inadequate procedures of the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. A case was brought forward by the police, and instead of becoming the adjudicators of the validity of the police case the office put the case forward without proper consideration. It did not ask the key question of the police—for instance, were there any other schoolboys around at the time? Terry MacLaren would then have been identified, would have come forward and been a witness, and the police would have had to tell the Director that there was a key witness who did not agree with the rest.
It is therefore vital for this House to turn its attention to the procedures of the DPP. Getting rid of one Director is not the answer to the problem, of course, because a new man could be appointed who would be just as weak as the outgoing Director in this aspect of procedure.
The House must pay close attention to the proposals ventilated by the Minister of State, Home Office that a new procedure, a new authority, should be set up similar to the district attorneys in the United States. Instead of the Director of Public Prosecutions acting as the un-

thinking henchman of the police, it would be able to judge whether there was a just case before a case was brought forward.
That would help the police. Instead of having the job of chasing a criminal and identifying him, and sometimes of leaning on witnesses to bolster up their case, so leading to grave suspicion that the police were interested in securing not justice but merely a conviction, they would bring material forward to a new agency which would judge all aspects of the case and decide whether or not they should proceed.
The Minister of State's proposals are valid. In the light of the Hain case they should be considered seriously by the House. Mr. Hain also said, in the Sunday Times and elsewhere, that there were other disturbing aspects of his case, which I hope the Home Secretary will look at. They are that the police kept him in near-solitary confinement for almost 12 hours and leaned on him very strongly suggesting reasons why they would get him, reasons which were related not to the particular offence but to his political activities some time before. The police, either deliberately or through lack of attention to the case, failed to bring forward evidence, in particular the witness Master MacLaren who was vital to the case.
Following his acquittal, Mr. Hain has gone on to call attention to other cases which depend or have depended on the sort of identification problems from which he suffered, cases such as that of George Davis—a man who is languishing in prison—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have allowed the right hon. Gentleman a great deal of latitude. Surely we are not discussing all sorts of cases that have already been dealt with. The right hon. Member is saying why the House should not adjourn. He wants an examination of procedures. All this detail of cases is irrelevant.

Mr. Stonehouse: I am drawing attention to cases which the House urgently needs to discuss. If we adjourn as proposed, we shall not be available to discuss these urgent cases. George Davis is just one of many cases in which a man was convicted on identification which is now generally accepted to be extremely


unfair. The suggestion is that the police, knowing or thinking that George Davis was a criminal in another capacity, decided to get him.
There are extremely serious aspects of public policy which need urgent attention, and we should consider whether we can afford to adjourn when these vital matters are disturbing the country. They are matters of concern to the Government, the House and individual Members. They concern corruption and bribery and scandals of that character.
The first of those matters is the biggest but perhaps not the most serious—the allegations that BP has paid more than £500,000 in subventions or bribes to Italian political parties in direct return for political favours. The Sunday Times carried out a very full investigation which was also the basis of a programme on Granada Television last night. The investigation took several months and produced the following information. The Sunday Times said:
Both Shell and BP, in one period of less than twelve months, paid about £500,000 each in secret Italian political contributions;
These payments were part of a systematic process, in which political payments were calculated as a percentage of the money the companies could expect to make as a result of favourable legislation by the Italian Government".
This is a very serious allegation. In answer to Questions yesterday, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster did not deal with it. He said that to the best of his knowledge there was no bribery and corruption in relation to the North Sea and he asked the House not to prejudge the allegations in relation to Italian political parties. But he could not give an outright assurance that there had been no bribery, because an investigation is still going on in the Italian Parliament. It has been dragging on for a long time, but the problem is that the majority of members in that Italian parliamentary committee are members of the political parties which are accused of taking the bribes.
One of the independent members of the committee said last night on television that he did not think it was likely that the committee could come to a satisfactory conclusion because of the bias built into the membership. However, this House is as concerned as the Italian Parliament about BP contributions to

political parties abroad, and it is vital that we should set up a Select Committee or some other body to investigate the allegations and judge whether a publicly-owned enterprise has been involved in these unsavoury activities.
It was discovered in the investigation that a man called Carlo Cittadini wrote a memorandum when he was a public relations expert at Exxon's Italian subsidiary in which he showed what had been going on in the past year. This is not just a question of a multinational company making legitimate contributions to a political party. That goes on in this country. The Conservative Party receives such contributions, but no one suggests that the Conservative Party takes specific measures when it is in power to satisfy its paymasters. If that allegation was made there would be investigations and it would be a scandal.
The material shows that the money being paid by BP, which amounted to many hundreds of millions of lire, was in return for particular favours.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have already drawn the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that we are not discussing detailed activities. The right hon. Gentleman has made his point that the House should not adjourn and for him to go into any more detail is an abuse of the House.

Mr. Stonehouse: I have been in the House for nearly 20 years and I know that this problem arises almost every time the Adjournment motion is debated. The Leader of the House himself took the opportunity as a Back Bencher of contributing to such debates and I remember his being called to order by the Chair. This activity goes on all the time.
The matter I am raising is so urgent and is giving such concern to the general public that it is vital that the House should debate it soon and set up a Select Committee to investigate it. About £2½ million was given by oil companies to the Christian Democrats and paid into the personal bank account of the party's administrative secretary, Filippo Micheli, the Socialist Party received £650,000, some of which was paid to the party newspaper Avanti, and the splinter Social Democrat Party received £268,000. These are very large sums of money and are directly


related to favours which were to be obtained. The Government, on behalf of the British public, have a 70 per cent, shareholding in BP and it is vital that they should investigate these allegations. If the Government do not take such steps, the House should set up a Select Committee to investigate the matter.
What would be the position if a large private company in this country were to be accused of paying funds to overseas political parties in return for favours, or perhaps leading to the emergence of a Government hostile to the interests of this country? If the shareholders of that private company demanded a special meeting to investigate the allegations, the Government and this House would give them all possible assistance in order that the proper process of control over the directors could be exercised.
The directors of BP are responsible to Ministers and not private shareholders, except to the extent of a 30 per cent, shareholding. The ordinary taxpayers of this country, who are the owners of BP, are asking why the Government, who control the company, are not doing something about this scandal. It is a serious scandal which needs to be investigated urgently by the House. It is vital that the House should consider whether it ought to adjourn or to spend time in the next few days studying these questions.

Mr. Michael Latham: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Although there are no limits on the number of reasons an hon. Member may give as to why the House should not adjourn, is it not a tradition of the House that in this debate hon. Members exercise a reasonable self-denying ordinance on length of speeches?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am obliged to the hon. Member for that point of order, but it all depends on the individual conduct of hon. Members.

Mr. Stonehonse: I wish to quote the last part of the article in the Sunday Times. It says:
the attitude of both giant companies appears to be the same as that of the Italian oil executive who said, testily:' None of this need have come out if some fool hadn't written it all down'.
Many aspects of public policy and public action do not see the light of day because

some fool did not write it all down. I wish to draw attention to three aspects, nearer home than BP's activities, which need our attention.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. With his long experience in the House, the right hon. Gentleman will realise that he has submitted enough evidence on why the House should not adjourn. Why must he prolong the agony?

Mr. Stonehouse: But I have only just started, Mr. Deputy Speaker. What I have said so far was just the preamble. I am trying to emphasise a number of points and hope to persuade slightly more hon. Members than I did in my speech on Friday to support my view and to vote against this proposal. It is outrageous that the House should be asked to adjourn for this period when there are so many other urgent matters that we need to discuss.
I am raising a number of matters and I shall go on until 10 o'clock if need be. The business of the House is protected because we have passed a motion providing that the next business will go on for as long as this business takes. We are not harming anybody. We can go on all night if necessary and I intend to do so if that is the only way the various points I wish to make can be brought out.
The House should investigate, whether by a Select Committee or otherwise, the payment of money directly by British Governments to overseas political parties. This is not a question of using BP to make payments—indeed an investigation may show that the company paid this money because it was told by the Government to do so. I am not alleging that that is so, but it is possible that the company was instructed to pay money in order to assist political parties in Italy which are favourable to the British view.
There are other allegations which I want the House to investigate concerning the political subscriptions to overseas political parties, in particular in Bechuanaland, which became Botswana. When I was Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, the then Deputy Permanent Secretary, Sir Arthur Galsworthy who is now British Ambassador to the Republic of Ireland, revealed to me that the British Government had paid secret political donations to Seretse Khama, the


leader of a political party in Bechuanaland, in order to assist his political campaign against his opponents. When seen in the context of BP's contribution of £500,000 to Italian political parties, this becomes an urgent question. The BP contribution is just one example and there may be many others. I have quoted that which was made known to me while I was a Minister.
The House should investigate this aspect of the conduct of public policy. It is all very well for hon. Members to close their ears to these problems, but there are unsavoury aspects of British Government activities overseas. If the House chooses to close its eyes, that does not necessarily mean that these issues will not blow up in some way at some time and hit us in the back of the head. Rather than having a long Adjournment over Easter, we should be given the opportunity of debating these matters and setting up an appropriate Select Committee to investigate them.
I know about the secret contributions to Bechuanaland because I was the responsible Minister at the time, but there may be many others which the House should investigate. We know that, through the CIA, the Americans have given secret political contributions to parties all over the world. For instance, $5 million was paid to Italian parties by the CIA. However, these contributions do not come only from the United States. I suggest that they are also made by the British Government to political parties which we wish to succeed in elections. I should like to see the matter investigated.
As regards investigations, I think that the House needs to have more information about the activities of the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. Wilson)—namely, the writing of his political memoirs. There is a strong suggestion, which is highly documented, that about £233,000 was paid to the right hon. Gentleman for personal favours in connection with his own political memoirs written as a result of his being Prime Minister.

Mr. Ted Graham: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it not possible to appeal to the right hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr.

Stonehouse), with his wide experience of the House, to recognise that there are many hon. Members who do not wish to crave the attention of the House for 30 to 35 minutes but are patiently waiting to be called so that they may speak for seven or eight minutes to make a case of passionate concern to their constituents? Is it not possible to appeal to the decency and propriety of the right hon. Gentleman?

Mr. Michael Latham: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There is strong feeling on this matter. It is not merely a question of time, or whether the debate can be extended. Many hon. Members have other commitments and they were hoping to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, at the time it was generally understood that the debate would take place.

Mr. Peyton: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sure that no one on the Opposition Benches would wish to appear inhospitable to the right hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Stonehouse) while he is among us. He has not been sitting among us for all that long. I hope that he will listen to the pleas which have come from both sides of the House as well as from the Chair, pleas that he should not be too long in what is normally quite a short debate.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I appreciate the points of order that have been raised. I supplement the appeals that have been made from the Chair in the hope that the right hon. Gentleman, with his 20 years' experience in the House, will recognise that hon. Members have other commitments. I hope that he will treat the matter seriously.

Mr. Stonehouse: I shall treat with seriousness any appeal that comes from the Chair, and I shall respect it, but I resent the snide remark which the right hon. Member for Yo-Yo introduced into his intervention. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his welcome, but I do not know why he should introduce that snide remark. I regret its introduction.

Mr. Peyton: Nothing snide was intended. I merely said that none of us wished to be inhospitable to the right hon. Gentleman, who has not been long with us.

Mr. Stonehouse: That is fine. That is an amendment to what the right hon. Gentleman said. I accept that as an apology.
There are widespread allegations cut-side the House about the right hon. Member for Huyton using his position—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to make no reference to the conduct of another Member of the House, or to cast any aspersions upon another Member.

Mr. Stonehouse: I wish to refer generally to the writing of political biographies.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have asked the right hon. Gentleman not to pursue that matter.

Mr. Stonehouse: The late Richard Crossman wrote a book about his experiences as a Cabinet Minister. I believe strongly that the House should be concerned with the issue of principle that arises when Ministers such as the late Dick Crossman write their memoirs during their period of office and publish them after they have left office. Unfortunately Mr. Crossman died, but other cases—I am talking about the general principle and not about any one individual—have arisen. It is terribly important that the House should get to grips with this issue of principle.
Do we allow members of the Government within a few months or years of leaving office, not in the twilight of their careers, to write their political memoirs for vast sums? In this general context we are considering political corruption and bribery. Where is the dividing line?
We have the extravagant case of BP, to which I have already referred, where £500,000 is alleged to have been paid for specific favours. There are other cases in which individuals write memoirs or sell papers for sums of the order of £233,000. These are vast sums. One must ask whether this has been done for political favours, or to enrich a person as a result of his public service. We must ask whether it is in order for public figures who obtain confidential information from within a Government to use personal papers that they have acquired as a result of that service and to sell them

outside for vast sums. It is a point of principle that must be raised and I believe that a Select Committee should be appointed to consider the issue.
My fourth point concerns the grave allegations that are being made outside the House about the activities of Sir Julian Hodge in Cardiff. The House should not adjourn until it has had an opportunity of considering these grave allegations. What will happen if the House does not inquire? The matter will not merely be taken up by Private Eye or the Daily Mail; it will crop up in other areas and through other media. It will create a nasty smell that will attach to the activities of certain public figures.
I do not believe that the Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), is other than a man of the greatest personal integrity. I am making no personal attack on the Prime Minister. However, his association with Sir Julian Hodge has been brought into question.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Standing Order No. 22 gives power to the Chair to direct a Member to discontinue his speech if he persists in irrelevance or tedious repetition of his own arguments. I am sorry to say that the stage has been reached when I must direct the right hon. Gentleman to discontinue his speech.

Mr. Stonehouse: Mr. Stonehouse rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I ask the right hon. Gentleman to discontinue his speech.

Mr. Stonehouse: I wish to challenge your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I believe that you are wrong and that your ruling will be misunderstood in the country. When a Member draws attention to an issue of public concern which is widely discussed outside the House, and when the matter is being published, it is necessary that the House should pay attention to it. It should do so by means of its own machinery. If that is not done, some other vehicle will be found for the raising of the issue that is extra-parliamentary. Therefore, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I challenge your ruling.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I order the right hon. Gentleman to discontinue his speech. I call the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Graham).

Mr. Stonehouse: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the Chair to stop an hon. Member referring to an issue which will be of public concern and of which he intended to give specific examples, quoting the head of the Civil Service, who named Sir Julian Hodge as a person who could not be appointed to the Bank of England Court—although he was nominated by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, the present Prime Minister—because he was not a worthy person for the appointment?
Is it in order for you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to use your position in the Chair to stop an hon. Member from referring to a fact that he knows from his own personal experience?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have already told the right hon. Gentleman that in my opinion Standing Order No. 22 is applicable. I have asked him to discontinue his speech. If he is to persist, I shall follow on with Standing Order No. 23. I hope that with his 20 years' experience he will not force me into that position.

Mr. Stonehouse: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker—

5.9 p.m.

Mr. Ted Graham: I ask the House to consider matters of vital importance to my constituents in Edmonton.

Mr. Stonehouse: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You have made a decision in which you say that there was tedious repetition in my speech. I should like to know in what aspect of my speech I was guilty of tedious repetition.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman knows full well that it is not the duty of the Chair to explain reasons for decisions. I am asking the right hon. Gentleman to resume his seat. Mr. Graham.

Mr. Stonehouse: Why is it that because exception is being taken—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I ask the right hon. Gentleman, if he is going to persist, to leave the Chamber. Mr. Graham.

Mr. Graham: Mr. Graham rose—

Mr. Stonehouse: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order, because there is objection to the content of a Member's speech—not repetition but content—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Under Standing Order No. 23, I order the right hon. Gentleman now to leave the Chamber. Mr. Graham.

Mr. Graham: Mr. Graham rose—

Mr. Peter Tapsell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. With the greatest possible respect to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may I express the personal view—without commenting in any way whatsoever on the merits of anything that has been said by the right hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Stonehouse)—that I believe that the ruling that you have just given from the Chair is one that is of very dubious constitutional precedent and that it could establish a dangerous precedent for the future?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Member for Horncastle (Mr. Tapsell) has only recently come into the Chamber and has not heard what has gone on before.

The right hon. Member withdrew accordingly.

Mr. Graham: I hope that the House will not adjourn until it has had an opportunity of considering a matter of great importance for my constituents. I refer to the constant difficulty that is occurring because of what are called itinerant caravan dwellers. The Caravan Sites Act 1968 refers to these individuals as those who lead a "nomadic habit of life". I am sad to say that the people of Edmonton have been suffering from people of this character for a very long time.
Hon. Members are aware that people of this persuasion are anti-social in their behaviour and cause a great deal of difficulty whenever they land in a particular community. For the third time in less than two years the people of Edmonton have been plagued by one manifestation of this kind or another.
First, last year on a site at Chiswick Road in Edmonton—where the housing construction that was due to start was


seriously delayed—a number of itinerant caravan dwellers persisted in refusing to remove themselves from the site, and a great deal of damage and difficulty was caused. Later last year a similiar number of so-called gipsies—but really itinerant caravan dwellers—landed in my constituency, at a site on Stirling Way, near the North Circular Road, and again created a great many difficulties for my constituents.
The reason that I hope that it will be possible for the House not to adjourn at least until we have had a statement from the Leader of the House relates to a problem that has blown up in the last few weeks. This has arisen on a site known as Charlton Road and Picketts Lock Lane. The residents of that area have recently petitioned me to bring to the attention of the House, as urgently as possible, the conditions under which tûey are living. Perhaps I may quickly read from this petition. I believe that the House will understand the anxiety and concern. The petition says in part:
These people have no sanitation and as our houses are close to this encampment there is danger of diseases and unpleasant smells from their animals.
We strongly object to their scrap lorries bringing rubbish and using the site as a dump.
We trust you will remove these people with haste as Picketts Lock Centre is used by people from all over the South-East and the sight of this camp is an insult to the Borough of Enfield.
I visited the site and Picketts Lock Lane and Charlton Road last weekend, Saturday 10th April. I counted more than 30 caravans and a number of lorries and cars that were parked on the site.
The site, sad to say, is like most sites that are used by these people. It is strewn with motor cars of various kinds, broken, damaged or torn to pieces, with motor car engines and other parts strewn all over the site. Also oil, which is very dangerous, is spread all over the site. The neighbouring residents complain to me bitterly that at night the smell when the rubber and other parts of these broken motor cars is being burned is very acrid and bad.
Secondly, one of the greatest associated problems relates to dogs. When I visited the site I saw a great number of dogs, perhaps 20 or 30—large and small, and

fierce. All were aggressive. They are continually causing problems to my constituents by barking at night.
In last week's issue of the Edmonton Weekly Herald, the local newspaper, appear the comments of two residents. A Mr. William Telling told the newspaper that when he took his dog for a walk he was "set upon" by six dogs, and was in fear for his life from the pack jumping, snapping and snarling. A Mr. John Thompson said that parents are now refusing to allow their children to travel to school on their own because they are frightened by these snarling dogs.
In matters of this kind, it is clearly urgent that we hear from the Minister before the House adjourns whether it is possible to bring about some amelioration of these problems. I believe that the main problem is the shortage of sites upon which these people can encamp.
I appreciate that not everyone wishes to live, as most of us do, in an ordinary house. There are people who wish to live in caravans and vehicles of that kind. I appreciate that the Caravan Sites Act was designed to bring some kind of order into the situation. The position is that a local authority that is able to designate a site upon which caravans may dwell is able to get a magistrates' court to give it an order to remove people from a site if they refuse to go.
In the London borough of Enfield such a site was created. The problem, frankly, is that we need more sites and not larger sites. I very much hope that if the need is recognised, the people of Edmonton, where a site already exists, will not merely have that site enlarged. In a borough such as Enfield, comprising the three former boroughs of Southgate, Enfield and Edmonton, I believe that if the problem is to be solved by providing greater space, it will not be solved by enlarging the present site but by having two further sites, one in western Enfield and one in Southgate. That is one of the ways in which this problem can be solved.
Another problem that needs to be tackled—and perhaps the Minister will comment on this—is the speed of determining these matters before the courts. Speed is essential here. There is a frustrating time lag. For instance, at Chiswick Road and in Stirling Way,


despite the valiant efforts of local council officers, it took six months before a court order was finally executed. On the present sites, Picketts Lock Lane and Charlton Road, the trespassers have already been there for two months. I hope that they will not be allowed to remain there for much longer.
The problems are very serious. There is the problem of the cost to the community. There is the cost of taking legal action and of clearing the sites, which are a disgrace. There is not only the question of making the sites fit because they are at present unhygienic; there is also the problem of securing the sites after the removal of the trespassers. I appreciate, however, that the Minister has already appointed Mr. John Cripps, in February this year, to examine the working and effectiveness of the 1968 Act.
In conclusion, I urge that before it adjourns, the House has at least a statement to the effect that Mr. John Cripps will be asked to speed up his inquiries. What we need in order to provide relief for my constituents, who are suffering greatly because of the present problem, is, first, legislation that will insist upon additional sites and, secondly, a speeding up of the legal procedures.
My constituents are suffering from the deficiencies of the 1968 Act. I hope very much that the present and potential loss of amenity and peace of mind will be the subject of drastic and positive action by the Minister and his colleagues.

ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. Speaker: I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signefied Her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

1. Housing (Amendment) (Scotland) Act 1976
2. Statute Law Revision (Northern Ireland) Act 1976
3. Damages (Scotland) Act 1976
4. Fatal Accidents and Sudden Deaths Inquiry (Scotland) Act 1976
5. Rating (Caravan Sites) Act 1976

ADJOURNMENT (EASTER)

Question again proposed.

5.21 p.m.

Mr. J. Grimond: Before we adjourn I should like to raise two matters. The first is the Peter Hain case. I am glad that his ordeal is now finished. It must have been most painful and I know that many people sympathise with him. I confess that it seemed to me that there was a rather weak case against him but, of course, I do not know what was known to the police and the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The criticism of the case has gone too far in demanding the resignation of the DPP. After all, the judge determined that there was a case to go to a jury and the jury took five hours to come to a decision. I therefore dissociate myself from that demand. But I hope that the Leader of the House will draw to the attention of the Home Secretary and the Lord Advocate the need for an examination of identification parades and a review of the procedures in that case.
A case in Scotland has been carefully examined by the Scottish Office but it still causes considerable concern. I refer to Mr. Meehan, who is in gaol for murder. I noticed that the Lord Advocate was in the Chamber earlier and I hope that the Leader of the House will draw to his attention that in spite of the care with which this case has been examined, there is still widespread anxiety about it. I hope that the Leader of the House will say that these matters are under Government consideration. I suspect that there are very few wrong convictions but that does not mean that they are unimportant. We should see that every possibility of a wrong conviction is examined and, if possible, eliminated.
I turn now to the proceedings of the House. It is some time since any drastic proposals were made for changing our procedures—not since the days of Richard Crossman. Perhaps the new Leader of the House, whom I congratulate on his new appointment, will be receptive to the idea of looking again at our proceedings. The business which we receive from Europe has already been discussed this afternoon. In the future we shall have Scottish and Welsh


Assemblies or Parliaments and it is therefore necessary for us to attend to how the House will conduct its own affairs. At present we sit for long hours, often far into the night, but we also have long holidays. Far be it for me to suggest that the House should sit in September or that it should not adjourn for Easter, but the public think that it is anomalous that we should sit until two o'clock or three o'clock in the morning and then go away for the whole of August and September. It is time that our arrangements were examined.
If the Leader of the House went to the Republic of Ireland he would perhaps take note of how they have gone on since they contracted out of the United Kingdom. I hope that nothing like that will occur to us but it is useful to talk to the Irish. They so concentrated on setting up the Dail that they did not pay sufficient attention to other changes. We are in danger of repeating that mistake when we grant home rule to Scotland and, possibly, to Wales.
If the Scottish Assembly is to be of any value it will need greater powers than are at present intended, and this House will be left to deal with foreign affairs, defence and broad economic planning. If that is so, a substantial number of civil servants should be removed to Edinburgh, or better still, dispensed with altogether. The House will then have more time to consider the wider aspects of government. We pass enormous amounts of legislation but we seldom review it, and we never compare resources against demand or expenditure against revenue. I hope that these matters will be considered alongside devolution.
Once we have devolution I hope that we shall be able to discuss the matters from the European Parliament at a more suitable time of day, but I fear that we shall simply set up a further tier of government in Edinburgh. I fear that there will be little relaxation in this House. In spite of Parkinson's Law, I hope our business will not expand to fill the same time as now. I hope legislation will be reduced, but we may still find ourselves sitting until the early hours of the morning. I would rather have shorter holidays and go to bed earlier. The public would find that more sensible.
We are now due for a reforming Leader of the House. The fact that the Crossman

reforms were not a success does not mean that reform is unnecessary. The Leader of the House is broadly on the right lines in thinking that the most important business of Parliament should be transacted in the Chamber. The wider aspects of policy should be considered in the Chamber.
I am in favour of Committees, but their excellent work is not considered often enough. Their Reports are too seldom debated and the implications of such Reports are too rarely understood by hon. Members. I would favour even more work for specialist committees, but the House should find time for more reviews of how legislation is working. For example, the Housing and Immigration Acts have been passed, but never followed up. We set up councils and so on, but we do not often examine how such Acts are affecting people. The opportunity of this huge constitutional change, which I hope we are embarking upon, will be lost unless we consider these wider matters.

5. 29 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Jay: Like the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond), I welcome the idea of a reforming Leader of the House but I do not recommend him to follow all the proposals which are associated with the name of Richard Crossman. I sympathise with the suggestion that we should consider not sitting so long over a 24-hour period and curtail our holidays. Following certain proceedings today it might be a good idea if the Law Courts did not take such long holidays either.
I now return to the subject on which my right hon. Friend has already spoken—the treatment by the House and Government of the two EEC Regulations on proteins and skimmed milk powder, which we discussed last night. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his assurance that there will be an opportunity for the House to discuss the matter further. Nevertheless, if we are to adjourn tomorrow, he has left it in an unsatisfactory state, in spite of his efforts.
My right hon. Friend argued that despite the resolution of the House last night, the Regulations will remain in legal force because in his view, and I suppose in the view of the Government, the European Communities Act overrides that


Resolution, which was unanimously accepted. It could be argued with as much force—I believe with more force—that last night's Resolution overrode the provisions of the Act. After all, the decision last night was the later decision of the House.
My right hon. Friend also has the Report of the Foster Committee against him in his interpretation. That Report, which was accepted by both sides of the House, says that it is inconceivable not merely that a Minister would disregard a Resolution of the House in these circumstances but that a Minister should act contrary to a Resolution of the House. In the interim period before the further debate we seem to be in the profoundly unsatisfactory situation that the House has taken a clear decision one way on a specific issue and we are told that as a result of the operation of the Act a law contrary to that decision is to remain in operation in this country. If the Government are to stick to that interpretation, and not accept the alternative argument that in view of last night's decision they should suspend the operation of the Regulations until the House has further considered them, I hope that the interval will be very short.
There is no dispute that the House took a firm decision last night. Virtually nobody on either side of the Chamber disputes that the working of the Regulations is damaging to this country. There is also no dispute that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, who I regret is not present, entirely failed at the meetings in Brussels to carry out the undertakings given in the Government's referendum manifesto that British Ministers would veto proposals which were clearly contrary to the interests of this country.

Mr. William Molloy: Does my right hon. Friend agree that when the Government are trying to combat high inflation, and when part of the pact with the trade unions is that every endeavour will be made to control prices, we are in an absurd situation? The Government are trying to reach an agreement, but then my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food tells the House of the colossal defeat he has had, which sends up prices, and the House can do nothing about it.

Mr. Jay: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. It was one of the arguments advanced in the debate last night that the operation of the proposals is wholly contrary to the economic policy of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
On the purely legal point, I remind my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that the European Communities Act, like all other legislation, is capable of amendment. Indeed, it has been amended in certain minor respects already in legislation which has been before the House.
I also remind my right hon. Friend that the Government's referendum manifesto said that our membership of the EEC depended on the continuing assent of Parliament. If that is so it is a serious question whether the Government are entitled wholly to disregard last night's decision, for the next fortnight anyway. They will be disregarding a clear decision of the House.
I shall carry the argument no further now, but I hope that my right hon. Friend will not assume that we all agree with the interpretation of the law which he gave today, and which the Government are following between now and our further debate on the issue.

5.35 p.m.

Mr. McCusker: It would be wrong if the House adjourned and we went away without first discussing the security situation in Northern Ireland in general and in my constituency in particular, not only because it is still one of the major problems confronting the House and because the situation is deteriorating, but because within days some people in Northern Ireland will be celebrating again the 1916 rebellion. There are grave apprehensions about the con-consequences not only for my constituents but for the constituents of many other hon. Members. The IRA will undoubtedly once again vent its spleen on the local inhabitants and the British Army in particular.
In 1975, 55 people were killed in my constituency; 16 of them were members of the security forces. The former Prime Minister intervened on 12th January after the death of 15 more people in the first weeks of this year. They included the 10 workmen who were killed at Kings Mills. The right hon. Gentleman took


personal responsibility for the security situation in South Armagh. When he made his statement on the situation he designated South Armagh a special emergency area, and he outlined a number of steps that he intended to take. The Spearhead Battalion and members of the SAS were introduced. There were to be more check points for vehicles and people, and a more extensive use of personal identity checks. Surveillance operations were to be increased along the border and there was to be more house checking. Powers of arrest were to be increased, and greater control over people using cross-border roads was to be exercised.
The then Prime Minister assured me when he made that statement that if the situation deteriorated he would give immediate consideration to the new problems created. His exact words were that
if the problem is still as serious in three months' time as it is today, there will certainly be no let-up, and long before that we shall have considered what further tightening and response is necessary."— [Official Report, 12th January 1976; Vol. 903, c. 40.]
The reality is that, after a few weeks which could be described as a honeymoon period, when the introduction of the SAS had obviously scared the terrorists, the terrorists are beginning to find their feet again. In three months 24 people have been killed in County Armagh. Another nine people are dead, four of them full-time soldiers and three of them part-time soldiers, including the second woman member of the Ulster Defence Regiment to be killed, and two civilians In the first three months of this year 25 per cent, of the 104 people killed in Northern Ireland have been killed in my constituency.
What is the result? Do we find the incisive mind of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet being applied to the situation, as the former Prime Minister assured me it would be? In what appears to be an authoritative statement in the Observer, we are told that following the deaths to which I have just referred:
The order immediately went out that in future Army vehicles will not be allowed to patrol south of Ordnance Survey line 30 on the map—three miles north of the previous ' no-go ' threshold for Army vehicles.
That means that another 40 square miles of South Armagh are now considered too dangerous for Army vehicles. If that is

correct—and it has not been refuted—more than 400 square miles of the United Kingdom are now considered too dangerous for the Army to traverse in its vehicles. What confidence can I have in the assurance which was given to us on that date by the Prime Minister? Is not the re-assessment which he promised us overdue?
I do not wish to demand more soldiers for Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland told us that he believes "Ulsterisation" is bound to help. We ask that even greater urgency be given to our request for the setting up of full-time companies of the Ulster Defence Regiment. We want greater police involvement. The special patrol group of the RUC was withdrawn from South Armagh because it was felt that proper liaison could not be established between the group and the Army. Surely it is not beyond our power to develop a communication system to ensure that each will not blunder into the operations of the other. I hope that the special patrol group will be reintroduced.
We should like to have more SAS men in South Armagh. They are equipped to deal with the particular problems there, and they are more likely to succeed in dealing with practised and efficient murderers than is the ordinary soldier who has to rely on Army vehicles to get about and, therefore, gives a warning every time he goes on to the road.
Great play has been made of the political restraint which has been placed on the Army in Northern Ireland. There is one specific problem to which consideration should be given. It surrounds the incident in South Armagh which gave the IRA its biggest propaganda coup this year. A hijacked tanker was placed on the border and the area around was booby-trapped. It was a deliberate "come-on" to the Army. The Army, rightly, did not risk putting its men into the area immediately. The vehicle was kept under daily surveillance from a helicopter, but the Army was unable to immobilise the tanker. On the first misty day the IRA drove the tanker 16 miles across South Armagh and blew up one of the last remaining business premises in the area. Had the Army been able to fire from the helicopter the tanker could have been immobilised immediately, but there is a restriction on the use of


weapons from helicopters. Within days another tanker was hijacked and the Army was forced to risk men's lives to immobilise it. I should like consideration to be given to this matter as a contribution to improving security in Northern Ireland.
This weekend we face the celebrations which surround the diamond anniversary of the Easter Rising. It should not be forgotten that the fiftieth anniversary in 1966 marked the resurgence of IRA activity. The Provisionals will exploit this celebration. No doubt David O'Connell, recently released from prison, will be smuggled into Northern Ireland in a deliberate attempt to embarrass the Government and the new Prime Minister. I hope that the Government have laid contingency plans, because the credibility of the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State will again be on trial. Many of us could not believe that the IRA was still capable of mounting a campaign such as the one it mounted last week. I hope that there will be no repetition of it this weekend.
The House has it on its conscience that loyal and brave citizens who are part-time members of the Ulster Defence Regiment in County Armagh are being killed daily almost at will by the IRA. They cannot go to bed at night and cannot go about their ordinary day-to-day business. They do not know whether they will be alive the next day or see the day out. They cannot call upon the police or the Army to come to their aid when they are in difficulty. If they do, they are told "We are sorry, we cannot go to you". They are left to the tender mercies of members of the IRA who have brutally killed their friends and neighbours. I find it sickening to go into South Armagh to attend funerals and to hear men speculate who will be next. I am glad that they maintain their membership of the Ulster Defence Regiment, but by so doing they sign their own death warrants.
The House expects these people to pay their taxes and to join the security forces. Some of them even send their sons to join the security forces. The House should give them the protection they need to live and work at peace with their neighbours.
The former Prime Minister said:
Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. The Government have a duty to protect all their citizens there. This duty will be discharged to the full."— [Official Report, 12th January 1975; Vol. 903, c. 30.]
There are still people in South Armagh who are waiting and hoping for that day to come.

5.45 p.m.

Sir Anthony Meyer: I shall find it difficult to justify to my constituents that the House should be on holiday at a time when, whatever may be happening in the rest of the country, unemployment in my constituency is creeping inexorably upwards and every week brings news of fresh redundancies and fresh threats of redundancy which, if they materialise, will overwhelm the job creation programme. I have full regard for the achievement of the job creation programme which is being exploited vigorously and imaginatively by Clwyd County Council to provide every possible job that can be squeezed out of it, but, if the redundancy threats materialise, North-East Wales, which hitherto has been an area of low unemployment though also an area of low earnings, will become a disaster area.
The figures tell their tale, and grim they are. The male unemployment rate in Clwyd as a whole is 11·5 per cent. In the Rhyl travel-to-work area the male unemployment figure is 18·5 per cent. This morning I checked to see whether there was any sign of a downward trend to these hair-raising figures. I am told that there is virtually no sign of improvement, even at a period of the year when seasonal factors might be expected to produce a steady drop in the figures.
The figures I have quoted take no account of the threat of a further 600 redundancies at Courtaulds and the loss of the remaining jobs at ITT in Rhyl which disappear in batches of 100. Ultimately, about 300 jobs will have been lost there. The figures take no account of the threat still hanging over our heads of the phasing out of steel-making at Shotton. If that threat materialises 6,000 job opportunities will be lost. The figures take no account of the effect of the Dock Work Regulation Bill on unemployment in and around Mostyn Dock, which provides 80 reasonably good jobs.
In addition the figures take no account of the latest misfortune to fall upon the area, which is the threat to the future activity of the group of factories operated by the firm of Tillie and Henderson whose headquarters are in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Morrison) who will, no doubt, seek to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker. Here, 575 jobs are at stake in North-West England and North-East Wales. There are 105 jobs at Leeswood, near Mold, 150 jobs just outside Mold, 120 jobs in Rhyl and a further 200 jobs in Chester. The firm is encountering considerable difficulty because of cheap imports of foreign textiles. I do not press the case for import control because I do not believe that it will provide a long-term answer for such factories, but I believe that it is an element that must be taken into account.
It may be that the receiver appointed to the firm may be able to save most, and perhaps all, of the jobs at stake. It may be that the employment premium of £20 per week—one of the items I welcome in the Budget—will just bridge the viability gap. But what is certain is that there is a time lag that needs to be filled by an immediate and reasonably generous bridging loan from the Department of Industry. There seems to be some doubt about whether the £20 per week premium can be paid to the receiver.
I understand that the matter is the subject of correspondence between the Department and the receiver, but until that matter has been settled a cloud of uncertainty will hang over the future of those jobs. For that reason I hope that the Minister will be able to take steps to avert a totally unnecessary shut-down of this firm and the loss of many badly-needed jobs in the area.

5.52 p.m.

Mr. Peter Morrison: I am grateful for this opportunity of catching your eye, Mr. Speaker. Normally, I believe that the longer the recess Parliament has, the better—not because I wish to have a holiday, but because I wish to keep in touch with my constituents outside in the real world. Hon. Members can become totally out of touch if they spend too long in this place. I also feel that the longer the recess, the less time we shall have to pass legislation,

for I am convinced that there is too much of it.
I wish to draw attention to two particular points and I give them as reasons for believing that, at this time, it would be better for the House not to adjourn for the Easter Recess. My hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) mentioned the firm of Tillie and Henderson Holdings Ltd., whose headquarters are in my constituency. There is, as my hon. Friend said, substantial unemployment in the North-West and in North Wales. If that firm goes out of business, a further 800 people will lose their jobs.
As my hon. Friend so rightly pointed out, it is at a moment such as this that we want to question the Secretary of State for Industry about his attitude in relation to his Department giving a bridging loan and to ask "If not, why not?" It is possible that the firm will go under—not because there is no money forthcoming, but because money is not forthcoming at the right moment.
The second reason for saying that the House should not go into recess at this time is simply the fact that we were promised that the Report of the Layfield Committee would reach us some time after Christmas. But Christmas arrived and passed, and there was no sign of the Layfield Report. We are now almost in the middle of April and we still do not know what the Report says.
Rate demand notes are now being sent out by local authorities. Ratepayers will feel a genuine and understandable sense of grievance because they have no idea of the Layfield Committee's view on how local government should be financed in future. They do not know the reaction of the two main political parties to this very difficult question.
As I understand the situation, the Government have gone so far as to say that they will review the procedure. Perhaps they have not gone so far as has my own party, which believes that the present system of financing of local government is unfair—in other words, that the system has served its purpose in the past but that that is no longer the case.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House will ask the Secretary of State for the Environment to publish the Layfield Report. When


exorbitant rate demands reach our constituents, they will at least know that something is being done to do away with a system that has totally outgrown its use. They will know that hon. Members are genuinely concerned about the enormous bills that ratepayers must pay. For these two vitally important reasons, I believe that it would be a mistake for the House to go into recess.

5.57 p.m.

Mr. loan Evans: I, too, feel that it is a great pity that the Easter Recess falls at this time because Labour Members are looking forward to hearing statements from the newly appointed Prime Minister and his new Cabinet Ministers.
I wish to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. Wilson), who has joined us on the Back Benches. My right hon. Friend has the tremendous record of having led the Labour Party into five elections and in having succeeded in winning on four occasions. Indeed, he formed four Labour Governments. We now have the fifth Labour Government out of the past six Governments of this country. Therefore, it is a pity that we are now to go into recess, because the nation is in need of leadership.
We have already seen in our constituencies that the new Prime Minister has been accepted by the country, and I think that a tremendous impression has been made by his new Cabinet appointments. I hope that the Prime Minister will lay down the social, economic and industrial policies of the Labour Government. We are passing through a difficult economic period and I hope that the Labour Government will give this country a lead.
Reference has been made to the need for a reforming Leader of the House. I think that we have such a person in my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot), so recently appointed to that post. My right hon. Friend said only yesterday:
I believe that it should be our purpose in this House to re-establish the supremacy of the House in all these matters. That is what I wish to see. It is not solely a matter of what we do in this House. It is also a question of how we enlist the allegiance and the affection

of people in the country for this House of Commons."— [Official Report, 12th April 1976; Vol. 909, c. 926.]
That was a good start by my right hon. Friend in his first speech as Leader of the House. It is always easy to listen to my right hon. Friend. When he speaks almost every passage sounds like a peroration—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman in his eulogy, but I hope that he will relate his remarks to why the House should not adjourn until Monday 26th April.

Mr. Evans: I was coming to that, Mr. Speaker, having quoted the words of the Leader of the House. We need to learn as early as possible from my right hon. Friend what he intends to do to modernise the procedures of the House. It is completely unreasonable, as has been pointed out by other hon. Members, that we should be meeting at 2.30 in the afternoon and carrying on until 2.30 the following morning.
There was an experiment conducted when the late Dick Crossman was Leader of the House, and we should again look seriously at this question. I am sure that there would be better discussions if we were to meet at 10.30 in the morning and finish not later than 10.30 in the evening. If this House is to be supreme, Members of Parliament should treat it as if it is supreme, and their attendance here should be regarded as paramount, whatever other duties they might have outside the House.
As has been said, the House of Commons should not be just a talking shop. It should also be a listening shop. I therefore hope that proposals for broadcasting the proceedings of this House will be brought forward soon. If this is to be a listening shop as well as a talking shop, the people should have the right to listen to what is said here.
We also have a new Foreign Secretary, and in congratulating him I express the hope that we shall soon have a restatement of our position in international affairs. Following the Helsinki conference, there is a need to reassert our belief in the policy of detente, which will, we hope, lead to greater international cooperation. It is regrettable that, with the difficult situation developing in Rhodesia and Southern Africa, we have not heard the new Foreign Secretary confirm that


the Government will stand four-square in their policy for that area.
We have heard today a statement on transport policy from the new Secretary of State for the Environment. There may well be a need for an integrated transport policy in the years ahead, but we should like to hear also from the Secretary of State what is to be done about housing. The new Secretary of State was very successful in his previous office in dealing with trade and exports, which have been building up very considerably. I wish him success in his new Department, but we should like to hear from him his plans for housing.
We also need to hear from the new Secretary of State for Trade how he intends to bring about the export-led economic recovery which will help to meet the many demands for improving our environmental services. I hope that he will follow the example of his predecessor and advise people to buy British. Although there is a demand for selective import controls, I believe that it is possible to have "do it yourself" selective import controls in that the consumer and the industrialist can both choose to buy British goods.
We have a new Secretary of State for Employment, and we wish him well. I hope that he, too, will state categorically that it is his intention to work closely with the trade unions and to try to bring about an improvement in industrial relations. I hope that encouragement will be given to every working person to join a trade union.
We have a new Secretary of State for Scotland, and once again we wish him well, although it is not for me to comment on the affairs of his Department. But I hope that for ever and a day there will be a Secretary of State for Wales and a Secretary of State for Scotland in the House of Commons and that this House will remain supreme. I believe that a Government statement is required proclaiming their belief in the unity of the people of these islands. Whatever is done about devolution, the starting point should be our belief in the economic and political unity of the United Kingdom.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, we in Wales are not unhappy at the present time, because we were fortunate in having you

elected as Speaker, representing, as you do, a Cardiff constituency. We were very pleased when the Lord Chancellor, who comes from Wales, was appointed. Now we have both a Prime Minister and a Leader of the House with Welsh connections—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must be neutral. I interrupted the hon. Gentleman's compliments earlier to the Leader of the House. The hon. Gentleman must try to relate his remarks to the motion on the Order Paper.

Mr. Evans: In conclusion, may I say that it is a pity that we are having the recess at this time? The people of this country want to have a lead on all the issues to which these new Cabinet Ministers are now turning their attention. I hope that Ministers will turn their attention to these important issues and that the Leader of the House will in due course arrange for the appropriate statements to be made and for debates to take place. I believe that when we come back reinvigorated from the Easter Recess we shall be able to solve the problems confronting us, and that the Government and the country will go from strength to strength.

6.6 p.m.

Mr. Jonathan Aitken: I believe that this House should not adjourn until the Government have been alerted, through the Leader of the House—whom we all congratulate on his new appointment—to the need to expand British exports to the Middle East. We have heard a great deal in the past few days about the need for an export-led boom and the need to reduce unemployment, yet very rarely do we hear any specific discussions about what needs to be done in order to create this export-led boom, particularly in the key areas where growth is possible.
The oil-producing States of the Middle East today account for 8 per cent, of our exports. That is double the figure of a year ago. If present trends continue, our exports to that area may double again. This capacity for growth does not exist in any other area of the world, and a little of our time could well be spent in considering what the British Government could be doing to improve our capacity to create an export-led boom in this area.
The key to this area is Saudi Arabia, which has a fantastic £70,000 billion five-year plan. I was a member of an all-party parliamentary delegation to Saudi Arabia a week or two ago. As we were walking through the marble and golden halls of a conference centre in Riyadh, a senior official remarked "Here we are building the Babylon of this millennium". That remark, I believe, sums up the terriffic opportunities for British companies and the British Government in exporting goods, services, industrial products and people to the new El Dorado which exists in these oil-producing States.
I wish I had some interests to declare in this area, so fantastic are those opportunities. A few months ago I was a managing director of a bank with interests in that area, and I still have aspirations for the future, but I regret to say that today I have no interests other than the nation's interests, which are to increase our exports. As a result of my experiences, I have some specific knowledge of what ought to be done in this respect, and I should like to make some constructive suggestions as to what the British Government should be trying to do at the present time.
First, there is great opportunity for more Government-to-Government deals. In rather an off-hand comment at the end of an answer to an Oral Parliamentary Question recently, the new Prime Minister, speaking then as Foreign Secretary, said words to the effect of "The more I look at British exports, the more I think that the Government should be involved in exports". I do not think that the significance of that comment was entirely realised, because the Government's imprimatur on exports—particularly to those areas where the Governments are often, understandably, suspicious of people going out just to try to sell them things—is a very important ingredient in our success.
In education, health, hospital building—and in exporting what are now, after all, the products of nationalised industries, such as motor cars—there is a tremendous rôle for the Government to play in being directly involved in trade deals. Here, I think that I should say a word about the weakness of our current export drive in terms of Government participation.
We have heard criticisms about the amount of money spent on diplomatic representation, and there may be some validity in those criticisms. But when we compare the amount spent on diplomats with the amount spent on those people who are involved in promoting exports, the outlook is extremely depressing in terms of the way in which our resources are being spent.
In Saudi Arabia, for example, the key person who is involved in Britain's export drive there is the head of the British Trade Mission to Riyadh, the commercial capital. He is one man on his own. He works without any staff. He works out of his own bedroom. He does not have a secretary or an assistant. In my view, a great deal more should be done to provide this official with additional resources in order to strengthen his hand and what he can do to promote our national goods there.
We should also look at the way in which we receive Middle East visitors, who are of great importance to our exports. A few days ago I was in Washington, where I witnessed the reception, indeed, the red carpet treatment, given to the Minister of Industry in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Ghazi Al Gossaibeh. He was awarded a full reception in the shape of the Treasury Secretary, Mr. William Simon, and his deputy, Mr. Parsky, all turning out to give him the full VIP treatment.
Yet the other day, when we had a diplomatic mission called the Joint Trade Mission for Saudi Arabia, a delegation led by Sheikh Abdullah Ali Reza, it was noticeable that Ministers were not involved and that it was left to senior civil servants to act as the hosts on that occasion. I believe that the Government should do more to recognise the significance and fundamental importance that Middle East visitors attach to the way in which they are received in this country.
It is also important to recognise, as we were told endlessly on our parliamentary delegation, that Britain's success in exporting to the Middle East will be much greater if it is operating within a political framework of greater understanding for the legitimate political objectives of the oil-producing countries.
I am sorry to say that for so long as the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr.


Wilson) was Prime Minister there was an understandable degree of suspicion that his Government were, on account of his own emotional sympathies, always very much committed to all-out support for Israeli policies. No one on either side of this House or throughout the responsible sections of the Arab world wishes to see Israel in any way become less secure and be driven into the sea, as some political extremists have expressed the wish. We all want to see a sound and secure Israel existing behind her pre-1967 boundaries. But, unless we realise that the Arab world's political aspirations have legitimacy and need a degree of support and understanding from the British Government, we shall not get full support and understanding for our own export objectives.
Finally, all this export drive which I am discussing and which is so necessary for our own national future can only take place in the context of a vigorous private enterprise system here at home. So many firms in this country are now dependent in the jobs that they give on their order books from Middle East countries.
It was the late Ernest Bevin who said to the miners "Give me an additional million tons of coal a year and I will give you a foreign policy." A modern British Government should say to British private enterprise "We will give you a foreign policy if you can give us some reliable delivery dates, some strike-free productivity and some good industrial products worthy of export." All these achievements can take place only in the context of greater encouragement for the private sector, for free enterprise and for export promotion.
It is not generally realised by Government supporters how suspicious private enterprise still is of their own desire to increase the public sector involvement in our national life and to diminish the drive of free enterprise. We cannot achieve the high export levels that we need if at the same time we discourage free enterprise. This must be the basic consideration behind the need to improve British exports in the Middle East and everywhere else in the world.

6.15 p.m.

Mr. William Molloy: It is not my intention to detain the House for any length of time. However, I should have been much happier if this

House had been going into recess in the knowledge that the Department of Employment would be willing to consider the possibility of calling a specific London conference to deal with the twin problems of unemployment and the possible danger of our losing some of the crafts which have been almost historic in the Greater London area.
Although the Greater London area is not defined specifically as a region, when the House realises that within the area which we London Members represent we have one-fifth of the total population of the British nation, the problems can be seen in perspective.
I say immediately, though it may be a bit late for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, that I wish to put on record, on behalf of my colleagues who on this side of the House represent London, the fact that my right hon. Friend was always extremely courteous and helpful to us when he was Secretary of State for Employment. He was always prepared to see us at the Department, in this House or wherever we wished to meet him to discuss and examine any proposition about the unemployment situation in the Greater London area, about which I know that he felt keenly. He felt as keenly for Londoners as for those living in any other part of the country.
In London we have a specific aspect of the problem which may not exist elsewhere. I acknowledge at once that in other parts of the country there is very much higher unemployment than there is in the Greater London area. At the same time, that is a valid statement only if we talk in terms of all other parts of the country and the whole Greater London area, because although in the Greater London area unemployment is lower than in the country at large, in parts of the Greater London area it is as high as, and in some instances higher than, in other parts of the country.
What has been happening probably applies only to the Greater London area. It is that successive Governments have faced unemployment in certain other regions and have had to acknowledge that London has been a magnet in that it has drawn people from other parts of the country. Usually there has been a paucity of skilled labour rather than an unemployment problem. As a result,


industry which wanted to come to the Greater London area has not bothered to come.
In addition to that, industries in the Greater London area have found it tempting to move out. Therefore, London has suffered. Where industries have moved out of the Greater London area the immediate effect, of course, has been an increase in unemployment.
It has not stopped there. It has been common in the past for a large industry to be associated with a specific area of Greater London. I have in my own constituency the Greenford area which for more than half a century has been associated with the skill of making glass containers of various kinds. Without warning, a large firm in Greenford moved out of the area. Skilled men found themselves unemployed, but what in many ways was even worse was that young people in Ealing who had been trained with a view to obtaining lucrative and permanent employment in a skilled trade in the glassworks found themselves without job opportunities. Similar stories could be told about various other parts of London involving other trades and skills.
As a result, adjustments have had to be made in the education of young people, since there could no longer be the same concentration on certain skilled artisan jobs and apprenticeships, and this, too, has led to the impoverishment of the Greater London area. This education and industrial training aspect is another situation created by the growth of unemployment in the Greater London area which I should like to see the Department of Employment looking into very closely.
I believe that there will be a return to full employment, but when it comes we shall need not only in Greater London but throughout the country the skills and crafts which used to exist there. If those skills are not available to the nation we shall not be able to take full advantage of the recovery which, I believe, will occur.
My appeal this evening, therefore, is that where we have a special situation such as we have in the Greater London area, the time has come for us to look at the possibility of having a specific

Greater London conference involving not only one of the Under-Secretaries of State for Employment, both of whom are extremely able and understanding, but also representatives of the Greater London Council, all the London boroughs, regional trade union officers, employers' organisations, and even education representatives. Such a conference, even a weekend conference, which I believe the Department of Employment could organise, would allow the problem to be seen in clear perspective. This in turn could contribute to our arriving at a solution, which is so urgently needed.

6.20 p.m.

Mr. William Ross: It would be very wrong of me to go away without raising the problem of the security situation in Londonderry which so intimately concerns so many of my constituents. To hammer the lesson home, I must point out that at 3.26 this afternoon two bombs exploded in Butcher Street, Londonderry, and Londonderry lost another shop and another public house. At the same time in another shop m Ship-quay Street, less than 200 yards away, a suspect bomb was found. It is significant that these three devices were all inside the tight security net surrounding the city centre.
Since the beginning of this year in Londonderry City one soldier has been shot dead and a few miles outside the city a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary Reserve was shot dead in the main street of Claudy, and a few nights later a civilian youth was shot dead in a local public house in the same village. In addition, since the beginning of this year there have been 15 attempts on the lives of members of the security forces, both full-time and part-time, by bombs and bullets in Londonderry City, and two attempts on the lives of civilians. While this does not compare with the level of IRA activity in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker), it is something that the House should keep in mind, because this level of activity is quite clearly to be seen in other parts of Northern Ireland and these things tend to be overshadowed by events in the worst areas, such as that of my hon. Friend.
My hon. Friend has drawn attention to the fact that during this recess there will be the Easter period in Northern Ireland,


with all that that means to the rebel element in the population, to life and property and to the physical and mental well-being of all our constituents. My constituents would like me to raise this afternoon the curious case of Mr. Martin McGuinness and his arrest and subsequent release. I should like to have a clear indication from the Front Bench opposite, on behalf of the Government, as to why this was allowed to happen.
Almost any person in Northern Ireland, if asked to say who Martin McGuinness was, would say that he has appeared on television as a spokesman for the IRA and is believed to be a leading member of that organisation in Londonderry City. Yet what is the truth? Nothing can be proven against him, no criminal charges laid. Not even the charge of being a member of the IRA can be proven against him. He and such a person as Seamus Twomey are able to walk the streets clearly seen by all my constituents, who say "Here is a man whom we believe to be wanted by the police, yet he is walking around and no effort is being made to arrest him", and they wonder why. This speculation has become so widespread among the general public that a denial that this man is under threat of arrest from the police should be issued by the Northern Ireland Office.
Following this, I should like to know whether, if David O'Connell should cross the border into Northern Ireland to speak at some Republican ceremony over the Easter period, he would be arrested. Will any effort be made to arrest him? Is, or can, any charge to be brought against him in Northern Ireland? If he cannot be arrested and charged, will he be arrested and excluded from Northern Ireland under the anti-terrorist laws of this nation? If this is not done, if no such serious attempt is made, the law and the forces of law and order are brought into contempt among the general public in Northern Ireland.
Again, in Northern Ireland on 1st February last a number of very inflammatory speeches were made about the, at that time, future death of Mr. Frank Stagg which in due course came to pass. His funeral was very tactfully handled by the Dublin authorities, for which I commend them. Then we were told that no charge could be brought against Mr. Agnew, but I believe that the Director

of Public Prosecutions still has under consideration, in the law's slow way, a case that might possibly be brought against Mrs. Drumm. Perhaps the Minister will give us an undertaking that the process will be speeded up.
Further, we have in Londonderry a number of points at which riots arise whenever Republican meetings are held—at William Street and Great James Street. There are attacks on the Fountain Estate and stoning occurs in Waterloo Place, and the Glen Estate can be attacked. We are told that there are always sufficient forces to meet these actions and problems, and yet on every occasion that an attack takes place and riots start there is nobody on the ground and no attempt appears to be made to forestall the forces arrayed against law and order. This does not help the position of the security forces or respect for them in the eyes of the public, whether that public be law-abiding or law-breaking. It brings the security forces into contempt.
When I raised this matter at Question Time on 19th February with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, he descended to abuse rather than trying to give me a constructive answer. He said:
The Army … are getting very fed up with criticism from the so-called Loyalist side of the community".— [Official Report, 19th February, 1976; Vol. 905, c. 1472.]
But only the previous weekend I had talked to private soldiers on the streets of Londonderry and to members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. The hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) and I were asked by soldiers why they had to stand and watch Republican elements burning and destroying property and being many times guilty of arson with no effort being made to arrest or stop them. This question came from the man on the street who had had to stand and watch that happening until 5.30 in the morning.
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has told us on many occasions that the number of soldiers needed for Northern Ireland is a question for the General Officer Commanding, but I ask the right hon. Gentleman to tell us what is the real situation. We are told that there are sufficient troops on the ground and that the situation is under control, and yet there are riots and there is arson and at those times there does not seem to


be the will or the men to control the situation. I suggest that there are not enough men on the ground to control the situation under the present site of the law but if the law were strengthened to the same degree, and if action was taken in the same way as anti-terrorist and anti-IRA action is taken in Eire, there would be sufficient men to enable those who are members of the IRA to be picked up and charged with these offences more simply than under the present system in Northern Ireland. They could then be put in prison for quite a long period of time. I should like the Government to look at this.
I would also ask whether during the Easter period the security forces in Londonderry will be prepared for riots at the usual times and in the usual places, and will have enough men on the streets to meet threats to law and order. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has said that he looked forward to the time when the police would have primary responsibility for security matters in Northern Ireland. We all look forward to that time. The problem to which he drew attention was that there was some acceptance of the police among some members of the minority community. But there is none among those other members of it, who are only really IRA members and fellow-travellers and who will never accept the police.
That is not, as the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland believes, for reasons of history but is because of the political aims of the IRA, which has decided that it wants a United Ireland and is using every bloody means towards that end.
Hon. Members should also realise that this is not mindless savagery by the IRA because no matter how foul the murder or evil the act, it is always aimed towards a certain political objective—the detachment of Northern Ireland from the rest of this nation.
There is much more that I could say about the terrible situation in which my constituents find themselves—the intimidation, the pain and the suffering under which they live—but I do not wish to detain the House any longer. I ask only for an assurance that efforts will be made to defend my constituents who wish to be

law-abiding, that efforts will be made to arrest those who do not wish to abide by the law but wish only to break it, and that we shall therefore have a peaceful and secure Easter.

6.31 p.m.

Mr. John Lee: If urgency and seriousness are the criteria for not adjourning now, I should have thought that the situation in Southern Africa came well within them. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdare (Mr. Evans) touched on this matter, but only briefly. I think that it deserves to be mentioned again.
It is extraordinary that we should have had a report to the House by my right hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Ennals), who is now Secretary of State for Social Services—I have difficulty in recalling who is now where—and who made a recent visit to Southern Africa, and that, although there were opportunities at Question Time for these matters to be raised, we have not yet had a full-scale debate on the situation in Rhodesia. Indeed, as far as I am aware, we have no promise that a debate will be forthcoming. However, there could hardly be a more serious situation than the one which is developing in that area.
We sometimes lose sight of the fact that for over 11 years there has been no lawful authority in a territory for which this country has direct responsibility. Since the Government of Ian Smith, as it was, was dismissed under the authority of the Crown in November 1965, there has been a legal void. Often, in circumstances which I regard as discreditable, there have been attempts to parley with Mr. Smith and his illegal régime. But there is still no lawful authority in Rhodesia, and no attempt seems to be made or to be in contemplation for one to be appointed.
Meanwhile, both militarily and otherwise, the situation gets worse. Of course, one gets a certain satisfaction if one looks shortsightedly at the military situation which is developing on the borders of Rhodesia. I say "one gets a certain satisfaction" because no one on this side and certainly not many hon. Members on the other side of the House would wish to give aid and comfort to the Smith régime At the same time, it is a grim situation.
The position is becoming polarised between an illegal—some would say technically treasonable—racialist régime, on the one hand, and the prospect of military invasion by other forces, which are themselves anything but liberal in many instances, coming from without, on the other hand. In saying that, my criticisms are directed at both sides in the dispute which is now raging.
We now have a new Prime Minister with, one hopes, a little more firmness in these matters. We need an undertaking from the Government that before long they will make a positive move regarding Rhodesia. As far as I can see, for some time past my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. Wilson) has been content to observe the situation from without and to have no policy at all. Now that we have a new Prime Minister, who for the past two years, as Foreign Secretary, has been responsible in a portfolio sense, I hope that we shall see a new and more vigorous attempt to tackle the situation.
One of the first things that I should like to see is the establishment—in this country, if necessary— -of a Government in exile with authority to take over when the Smith régime collapses or recognises that it is facing defeat and disaster and is prepared to acknowledge its illegality and vacate office.
We urgently need an assurance that a visit by the Foreign Secretary, and probably by the Prime Minister as well, will be made to Mozambique to consider whether it is possible to reach an understanding with the various countries on the borders of Rhodesia which, understandably from many points of view, give aid and comfort to those seeking to invade that country. Unless and until something along those lines is done, the situation will get worse for all concerned and we shall end up being without credit on either side.
We shall have failed, as we have done for the last 11 years, to support and succour the majority of the population in Rhodesia from the régime which they have had imposed upon them. At the same time, we shall get no credit from the various nationalist movements.
It is interesting—I mentioned this matter in a debate on foreign affairs within the last few weeks—that at least one of the nationalist leaders in

Rhodesia, Bishop Muzorewa, does not want us to involve ourselves now. At one time the nationalists wished us to come to their assistance. Now their attitude—at least in one case—is to dismiss us, I suppose, scornfully and contemptuously. That is perhaps understandable. However, it is not a situation with which any of us could be satisfied.
It is a sombre situation. We are in danger of being out-manœuvred by all sides. We are in danger of finding ourselves made out by the Russians and, indeed, by the Chinese to some extent as being on the side of white supremacy in Southern Africa. I do not think that my right hon. Friend would want that label appended to this Government. I hope that we shall now have a more positive approach to these matters than we have had in the last two years.

6.38 p.m.

Mr. John Peyton: I should like to start by offering my warm congratulations to the right hon. Gentleman on his appointment as Leader of the House. The right hon. Gentleman has been in this place for many years. While he has been here, his approach to those in power has never been obsequious. Indeed, on many occasions it has been positively disrespectful. No one could say that he has sought office. Indeed, for many years he gave the impression that the awful responsibilities and curbs of office were the very last things he wanted. However, I congratulate him on the way he is surviving those curbs and, in a measure, accepting the responsibilities.
The right hon. Gentleman has always supported policies which have considerably increased the power of the State, but the fact of that support, given in the Lobbies, has never wholly undermined the impression that he was a man of eloquence and fire whose considerable talents would always be deployed in defence of personal liberty and parliamentary government. Now, after the leisurely and ritual process of a party election, the right hon. Gentleman emerges not merely as a very formidable runner-up but almost as the winner of the contest. He comes before us not just as the runner-up, not just as the Leader of the House but as Lord President of the Council as well—a title of great dignity. He will need a dinner jacket now, I think.
Such are the appetites of men for power and titles that even the right hon. Gentleman's appetites are apparently unsatisfied. Yesterday afternoon, in this place, he was equating himself evidently with the Archangel Michael. I think he ought to go a little slowly before he approaches too intimately the heavenly host. He has now emerged not only as the runner-up and as Lord President of the Council but as the most powerful man in the Government—the one man whose resignation would bring down in ruins this conceited coalition. I must say I very much hope that one day he will be tempted to do it.
It is a long time since the Leader of the House has, at the same time, been the most powerful man in the Administration. Our questions to him will be invested with rather more weight than the questions which we normally address to the Leader of the House. We will await not only his answers but also his deeds with even more eager anticipation than usual.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) raised the question, which I am sure will be constantly put to the right hon. Gentleman, of the way in which this House conducts its business. The right hon. Gentleman, I thought, was slightly unfair to the House in that he appeared to suggest that the way in which we conducted our business was to be laid at our door. But only partially are we guilty. We have fallen into doing the bidding of the Executive, which understandably runs its affairs in a far more deplorable way and communicates its bad habits to this place.
The right hon. Gentleman said, quite rightly, that we are due for a reforming Leader of the House of Commons. I very much hope we have one, but I also hope that the word "reforming" will be clearly understood as meaning an improvement and enhancement of the power, prestige and influence of the House of Commons and not just clipping the wings of Parliament further so as to make life more comfortable and convenient for the Executive.
The right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay), who has left the Chamber, raised the question of the dilemma into which we have got over the question of these European Regulations rejected by the House last night

but accepted by the Community. It is really rather sad to find ourselves in a situation in which the Minister of Agriculture, whom we all like very much, has accepted those Regulations as part of a package deal and now comes here and says that he does not like them either. I think that the Minister of Agriculture should be invited, very respectfully, before he takes his journeys to Brussels, to think out carefully what his views are about such Regulations before he accepts them as part of a deal instead of coming here afterwards, when it is all too late, and rending his garments and taking sackcloth and ashes.
I greatly appreciated the Lord President's early response to this dilemma and the assurance of an early debate when we reassemble after Easter. He acknowledged that this matter could not be left indefinitely as it is. We appreciate his approach very much.
The hon. Members for Armagh (Mr. McCusker) and Londonderry (Mr. Ross) gave the House a timely and usual—I use that word in a perfectly proper sense, and it is perfectly justified—reminder of the horrors of Northern Ireland and pointed out that, uncomfortably and horribly near to us, we see continued examples of men who by the use of muscle, violence and cruelty are determined to upset a state of law. Both hon. Gentlemen deserve the attention of the House, and the Government, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will call the attention of his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to what they have said.
There are two convenient ways in which to reach the Government Front Bench. One is to be very polite to its occupants and the other is to be very rude to them. The hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. Evans) chose the former way. He rather overdid the eulogies which might have been expected of him at Eastertide by saying how nice it would be to hear again from one of his right hon. Friends. He went through the list. Candour compels me to admit that I do not entirely share his enthusiasm to hear once again from his right hon. Friends. I personally am only too relieved that the Easter Recess is coming upon us so that we shall be relieved of listening to too


many of them saying things in which neither they nor we believe.
My hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, East (Mr. Aitken) referred rightly to the importance of the Middle East and expressed regret—I entirely share his views—that he had no interest to declare in that part of the world, a regret which, I am bound to say, I must express on my own behalf. Who knows, perhaps some itinerant Prince of Arabia, pursuing an assiduous study of Hansard, may one day fall upon this passage and help my hon. Friend to remedy this sad state of affairs.
I have two questions of my own which I should like to put to the right hon. Gentleman. First, with all the eloquent speeches he has made on the subject of the House of Commons in his mind now, as they must be, is it his intention that Parliament's power and influence should be revived and restored, or would he be content that they should continue to diminish? Parliament has undoubtedly over the years during which he and I have been here, lost power. The House of Lords, about which the right hon. Gentleman never fails to show his contempt, survives as a kind of home of rest. It is allowed to continue because it is more convenient to the Administration than it is irritating.
We all recall the recent experiences of the right hon. Gentleman. I think it is true to say that, by and large, the other place has become a convenient part of the Administration's framework and not too irritating to them. It is allowed to survive, but while this process has been going on the House of Commons has rather sloppily, in the name of democracy or something, given its approval to the process.
Yet the House of Commons has appeared not to recognise that exactly the same diet is being meted out to it by a predatory and overweening Executive, which has clearly increased its powers over the years. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will remember that, oddly enough, the effect of giving more and more power to the central Government is not to produce a razor-sharp and efficient Administration. On the contrary, the effect, which is visible in many aspects, is to produce an Administration which

becomes arrogant, overweening and inept.
I said that the House of Commons had lost considerable power while the right hon. Gentleman and I have been here. Who on earth believes that the House of Commons now does more than provide a Government, who thereafter go on their way virtually unchecked, enjoying, as the present Government do, a docile majority—until the other day at least? Which admirer of the House can really claim in public that it is we who effectively control Government expenditure or influence borrowing, which is now astronomical? Who suggests that the House devotes itself to the cause of sustaining the liberty of the individual? Does anyone even claim that we can generate and sustain a discussion which clarifies both the issues and the perils of the time? Therefore, my first question to the right hon. Gentleman is: how far would he like to see this House revived, and would he be content to see it further diminished?
The answer to my second question will serve as a good means of judging the value of the words which the Leader of the House will pour out in answer to the first one—that is, how does he see things now in the matter of the numbers on both sides of the House? Only a few days ago the Government had a paper majority of two. One right hon. Gentleman has now crossed the Floor. What does the Leader of the House think is the proper disposition of numbers in existing Select and Standing Committees and in those which have yet to be set up? I am sure he will have very much in mind the fact that two highly controversial Bills have just been published. What are we to expect from the Committee of Selection? Should that Committee's constitution be looked at in the light of the present balance in the House?
This Government have so far shown little respect for the views of the large section of the public who do not agree with them at all. They have taken little account of the narrowness of their majority. They have frequently been content to justify their conduct by saying that this is an affair in which counting heads is all important. So be it. That paper majority has now gone, and I hope that we shall get from the Leader of the House an assurance in the name of this


Administration that that new development will not be merely noticed in passing and turned aside as just another inconvenience and thorn in the flesh but will influence their thinking and actions. Their thoughts and actions in this situation will be a far more certain assurance than any words of their real attitude to this House.

6.55 p.m.

Mr. John Prescott: An important matter has arisen only in the last hour which I believe to be sufficient to delay the Adjournment of the House. I refer to the grave allegations about British Petroleum in the Press and on television. I do not seek to justify them or to provide evidence but I believe that there is sufficient information and evidence to cause concern in this House and increasing concern among the public.
The House should investigate or debate the real issues of public concern which are raised. Allegations have been made that oil companies—British Petroleum and Shell, among others—have made substantial payments to political parties in Italy. The Select Committee on Nationalised Industries has tried to investigate this matter. Understandably, in view of the Resolution of the House, the Committee could not investigate British Petroleum, even though almost 70 per cent, of its shares are owned by the Government. That leaves only the possibility of debate in the House.
Yesterday, in answer to a Question, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said:
As regards any contribution to political parties, I take it that my hon. Friend is referring to newspaper reports and that he would wish to join with me in the conventional presumption of innocence until the contrary is proved."— [Official Report, 12th April 1976; Vol. 909, c. 910.]
That is a fair point, but we should take into account not only the evidence provided by the Sunday Times or the "World in Action" television programme, which cannot be easily dismissed, but also statements made today by the companies involved.
Shell has issued a statement today admitting that an investigation of its accounts discloses that £2½ million was distributed to political parties in Italy.

It said that the parties were neither of the extreme Left nor of the extreme Right, but it will not say who was paid. That raises an interesting political question about distinguishing between political parties when payments like this are made quite apart from the political implications.
The only alternative for hon. Members is to ask Questions. Last Friday I put down two Questions to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. One asked
if, in the light of evidence submitted to him … he will have discussions with the Italian Government and the EEC Commission relating to the implications under the requirements of the Treaty of Rome of the activities of British oil companies in making payments to Italian political parties.
The answer was to the point: "No."
In answer to the second Question, the Chancellor said that the Government were satisfied with the financial control of the transactions of British Petroleum's overseas subsidiary.
That is not sufficient. The least that the Government should have done was to consult those organisations to see whether there was any substance in the allegations. If they do not want to make a judgment, they should at least investigate and discuss the matter with the bodies concerned. That answer was deplorable and totally unacceptable. There is a fundamental question here relating to the control of multinational companies. Should not the Government, who have a major share of BP, one of the companies involved, investigate the issues?
I consider that public concern will grow in the next few days, when Parliament will be in recess and we cannot have a public debate. I hope that the Government will delay the Adjournment or at least reconsider their position. I believe that BP is to make a statement tonight which may make the refusal to hold an investigation totally inadequate and unacceptable in the light of public concern.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Stephen Ross: I realise that the House wishes to conclude this debate, but I ask for hon. Members' indulgence for a few minutes. I have been shut away in the Dock Work Regulation Bill Standing Committee, which prevented me from speaking earlier.
The House should not adjourn until something is done about the position of commercial ratepayers with empty properties in secondary situations. They face an iniquitous surcharge on their rates. We have listened to some important matters concerning Northern Ireland. One of my constituents who is a serving officer in Northern Ireland faces a bill of £680 for his property which is in a secondary position in a town in my constituency. He is unable to sell the property. Previously he tried to secure a change of use for it for residential purposes, but he was turned down by the authority which is imposing the surcharge.
The surcharge stems from the Local Government Act 1967, reinforced by the Local Government Act 1974. It has had a disastrous effect on the owners of these properties, which are virtually unsaleable, because of the downturn in the economy and the lack of interest in commercial properties which are not in a High Street position. Often they are difficult to let.
Substantial sums are involved. Last night we heard in an Adjournment debate that in the Harrow area £2,000 had been demanded from an unfortunate person. I have taken this whole issue up with the Department of the Environment and the Minister for Planning and Local Government, who has written to me passing the buck back to the local authority.
The chief executive officer of my local authority told me that it was not in the authority's jurisdiction to make any alteration to applying the hardship clause. He said that if a person had the means to pay, he should pay. He passed it back to the Department of the Environment.
I urge the Department to take action. The Minister of State, Department of Industry said last night that he thought the matter should have his attention, but it is a matter in which the Department of the Environment should act. It should issue a circular telling local authorities to be generous in these circumstances, to be understanding and sensitive and to interpret the definition of hardship widely so that very large sums are not demanded.

7.3 p.m.

Mr. Foot: If I try to cover as speedily as possible the points which have been raised I hope it will not be regarded

as disrespectful to hon. Members. If I made full replies to all the questions we would be here for a long time. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) and the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) will forgive me if I do not reply to their questions in detail. I have not had an opportunity to consider a circular such as the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight is asking me to issue at once. We should not be able to issue it before the Easter Recess, but I will discuss the matter with the newly-appointed Secretary of State for the Environment.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East put an important question which was mentioned earlier in the debate. There have been fresh statements by Shell and BP while I have been sitting on this Bench, and therefore it would not be appropriate for me to comment on those statements on behalf of the Government until they have been fully examined. I am sure that the House will wish to return to the matter after the recess.
The House of Commons has a variety of ways by which these matters can be brought speedily to our attention. It is one of the virtues of the Commons that it can react to events more swiftly than any other elected Assembly in the world. We should bear that in mind when embarking on any reforms. I hope that my hon. Friend will be satisfied if I say no more now. When the House meets again I am sure that he will be raising this subject again and that other Members will want further Government comments.
The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) made some kindly remarks about me and I am very grateful for them I seem to have caused only minimal offence by comparing myself with the Archangel Michael. He seems to think I should behave like a blind Samson, pulling down the temple of the present Government. This is not the reason I was invited to join the Government. It was for the opposite purpose of propping up the whole structure. I do not say that that is entirely a one-man job, but I am sure that that was the whole idea of the invitation, which I was glad to accept.
The right hon. Gentleman said that he would put two questions and for a moment I squirmed in my seat because I know that he can pose formidable questions. Partly because of his good nature at Eastertide, he put two easy questions. He asked whether I wished to see the powers and the influence of the House of Commons revived, restored and sustained. Of course, I am very much in favour of that.
There has been some decline in recent years, but not perhaps for the reasons he suggests. I do not accept the platitudinous view that we are suffering from a predatory and overweening Executive. The Executive can be brought under the control of the House of Commons much more readily than hon. Members think. That is why some of us were so concerned at the European Communities Act. It was a specific measure in which the power of the House of Commons was diminished and that of the Executive was enhanced.
Such specific measures have tended to reduce the power of Parliament, but I reject the suggestion peddled by academics, who perhaps make profitable careers out of the business, that the Cabinet is all-powerful and can do anything it wants and can dictate to the Commons. That is not so. The House of Commons can call the Cabinet and individual Ministers to book very easily. Rows can blow up which change the whole course of the conduct of government. The Departments of State are much more alive to what can be done in this House than is sometimes assumed.
The second question the right hon. Member put was slightly more awkward, but not all that difficult. He asked what would happen, with the alteration of numbers in the House, to future Committees. There can be no recommendation for altering the composition of existing Committees and we have no intention of doing so. Of course, the Government must take account of the alteration in numbers as must the Selection Committee. Maybe we shall have to return to the kind of arrangement we had between March and October 1974 when the then Government took account of the numbers in the House. Governments have to bow to the House of Commons and the numbers in it.
Extremely important issues were raised by the hon. Members for Londonderry (Mr. Ross) and Armagh (Mr. McCusker) who spoke for citizens of this country who have suffered more fear and injury than any other section of the British community in recent years. Those hon. Members are fully entitled to bring their grievances here and to ask what the Government have to say about them. The hon. Member for Armagh referred to the security problems likely to arise in South Armagh over Easter. I shall draw the attention of my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to what both hon. Members said.
The security situation in South Armagh and elsewhere in Northern Ireland is kept constantly under review and the response of the security forces is always related to the level and nature of violence. Both my right hon. Friends are well aware of the various traditional activities in Northern Ireland over the Easter period, and the security forces will take all necessary measures to deal with any situation which arises.
I do not know whether the hon. Members from Northern Ireland wish me to say more about their remarks. I hope that they will not expect me to reply to their detailed suggestions about the conduct of the security forces, but proper account will be taken of what they have said and I am sure all their suggestions will be considered.
We treat most seriously what both hon. Members have said, particularly at this time. There are some factors in the Northern Ireland situation which are showing signs of improvement, particularly the co-operation between the British Government and the Government of the Irish Republic. That co-operation is better now than for many years, or even decades. It is one of the factors which may contribute to securing peace for all the people of Ireland.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Graham) apologised for the fact that he had to leave. He raised the problem of sites for caravan dwellers, but many of his points were matters for Enfield Borough Council and it is not for me to give a detailed reply to them. As my hon. Friend pointed out, Mr. John Cripps is chairing a committee


inquiring into the working of the Caravan Sites Act 1968, which has caused various problems, and I understand the committee hopes to report to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment in the autumn. Certainly all the questions my hon. Friend raised are open for discussion by the committee and I think that our best course would be to await its report. In the meantime, I can assure my hon. Friend that we are fully aware of the strength of feeling he has represented to the House from his constituents.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy) raised the extremely difficult question of further special measures to help with the unemployment problem in Greater London. The new Secretary of State for Employment had a meeting yesterday with representatives from a part of London which has been perhaps most hard-hit by unemployment, though it is difficult to draw distinctions between areas when so many parts of the country have been affected by this same blight.
The difficulty about altering regional policy altogether is that it would be weakened in those areas which have been afflicted even more than Greater London. I am afraid that my reply to my hon. Friend will not be very helpful, but I can assure him that there is no Government prejudice against looking for measures to help in London or elsewhere. London has had its full share of the measures we have been able to take to assist in training and other forms of aid to overcome the difficulties during the period of recession.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee) referred to the situation in Rhodesia and asked for a Government statement. I fear that he will not get a fully adequate statement from me now. It is not true, as my hon. Friend claimed, that the Government have been taking no positive attitude. The Government's attitude to events in Rhodesia has been closely concerted with the African States most involved in order to try to assist in the establishment of majority rule, which we wish to see as earnestly as ever.
My hon. Friend said that something of a legal void had been left in the situation in Rhodesia. I hope that he will not mind if I leave something of an oratorical

void in my reply to him. I cannot cover all the points he made. The Government have been seeking to assist all those who can help to secure the speediest possible establishment of majority rule in Rhodesia by peaceful means.
The hon. Member for Thanet, East (Mr. Aitken) referred to the necessity to assist the export trade to the Middle East to the maximum degree. The Government have done a great deal in this respect. No doubt there is always something fresh that can be done, but the reports of the former Secretary of State for Trade in the last few months indicate how special efforts and assistance have been given in the Middle East and that this area has provided some of the most hopeful expansion of British exports—partly because of the efforts made by the Government.
The hon. Member for the City of Chester (Mr. Morrison) asked that we should not depart for the recess until we had the Layfield Report securely in our hands. That is asking a little much and I hope that he will not press it to a Division. We shall have time enough to study that Report when we return.
I am not complaining of the way in which the hon. Member argued his case, particularly as he was supporting the claims of the hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer), who very properly drew the attention of the House to the extremely serious unemployment situation in his part of Wales. I do not seek to qualify what the hon. Member said, though I am grateful for his acknowledgement of the efforts of the county council to make the best use of the assistance we have tried to give in various ways. The council concerned is one of the most progressive in this respect, but this is one of the parts of the country where the greatest efforts are needed to overcome the unemployment problem.
The hon. Member referred to continuing anxieties about what is to happen to the Shotton steelworks. I hope that it will not be very long before a decision is made, but one of the reasons for the delay is precisely that the Government recognise the seriousness of the unemployment in the area and the seriousness of the case put on behalf of the steelworks. I have heard it myself and nobody can deny the strength of the case.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) spoke about the Peter Hain case. It would not be right for the House to concern itself with the decision to prosecute in particular cases. When the Director of Public Prosecutions has assumed charge of a case, it is a matter for his professional judgment under the direction of my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General. In fact, the right hon. Gentleman did not question that in any way. He put the matter most fairly.
The subject of identity parades has naturally been a matter of widespread public comment. Identification procedures were examined by the committee under Lord Devlin. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who received the Report earlier this year, has had to consider the publication of certain details relating to individuals who are named in the Report as presented to him, and to take up the matter with Lord Devlin.
It is my right hon. Friend's intention to publish the Report in full. It is with the printers and my right hon. Friend believes that it will be published by the end of April. I imagine that the whole House has no doubt that the case has aroused widespread public interest. It is another of the subjects which will be raised afresh in the House when we return after the recess.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) and others have commented upon my remarks on the vote of the House last night. I have nothing to add to what I said earlier. My right hon. Friend is one of the greatest experts in the House on this subject, but it is a fact that, however much it is necessary for Governments to take account of resolutions, resolutions do not have anything like the same force as law that is passed by the House. Those of us who pointed out that fact and reiterated it so extensively during the debates on the European Communities Act cannot very well deny it now. However, we have to overcome the dilemma. We shall take account of the decision of the House yesterday.
We shall have a further debate when we return after the recess. How we shall proceed in that debate depends

upon what the Government suggest to the House and what the House thinks about our suggestions. No one can deny the reality of the dilemma which arises from the nature of the legislation that we passed two or three years ago, and from the decision of the House yesterday.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: Perhaps my right hon. Friend will tell the Common Market "This is the decision of the House of Commons and you can do what you like about it".

Mr. Foot: Unfortunately, it would not work like that. I believe that my hon. Friend, along with many others, would not agree with the proposition that we can invalidate a major piece of legislation by a single resolution. I should not like to see the trade union legislation that we have passed through the House so properly over the past two years invalidated by one clause in one resolution, if by any mischance there should ever again be a majority in the House that wished to do anything so foolish.
I do not agree that it is wrong for an Act of Parliament, passed through the House in all its procedures and processes, to take pre-eminence over one resolution. But that does not mean that we do not have to take account of resolutions passed by the House. Of course we have to take account of them. That is what I said at the beginning of the proceedings.

Mr. Lee: I note what my right hon. Friend says. I do not think that anyone could take exception to it. Part of the complaint is that these matters are brought before the House, as last night, after they have been enacted by the Common Market, so that we are presented with a fait accompli. Alternatively, a resolution is put before us which in strict Community law has no validity. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be a good idea if the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food could be persuaded to bring such matters before the House before they go to the Common Market?

Mr. Foot: I do not think that my hon. Friend has seen the full complication of the problem. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food acted according to the recommendations of the Scrutiny Committee. The


Committee was established by the House to recommend how these matters should be conducted. It recommended that my right hon. Friend should not necessarily have to bring the matter back to the House before reaching the conclusion of his bargain in Brussels. My right hon. Friend was acting in accordance with the recommendation of the Scrutiny Committee. It may be that the House will wish to look again at the Committee's recommendation and how it operates. That is another aspect, but we have to discover a remedy for the disease.
It is no good thinking that there is one simple remedy. The matter is more complicated than that. Would that it were so simple for the House to affect a remedy, including the remedy of the referendum, but I fear that it is not.

Mr. Peyton: I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman wishes to stretch language too far. As I understand it, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food went to Brussels and accepted the Regulation as part of a package.

Mr. Foot: I do not want to stretch language at all. The purpose of language is not to stretch it but to use it. There are plenty of words around to enable us to avoid any stretching. As far as I know, everything that I have said is accurate. I have described what my right hon. Friend did and what happened in the House. The House is faced with a genuine and serious dilemma and we must try to discover a solution. It v/ill have to be a solution that is satisfactory to the House. The House will have the final say.
I think that I have covered almost every speech except what the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland said about procedure. It would not be fitting for me to dilate too much on the procedures of the House. The Procedure Committee has been established to consider such matters generally. I do not mean to say that there are not many worthwhile reforms of a fundamental nature that are worth exploring, especially if we are to have devolution. In fact, I am sure that we shall have devolution.
I am sure that Scottish and Welsh Assemblies will be established. I believe that such matters are influenced by what

has been proposed or arranged as a result of our relations with institutions in Europe. All these matters must affect our procedures. I am not suggesting that we should not contemplate fundamental reforms.
Very often people have the wrong idea about what happens in the House of Commons. The idea that late-night sittings are the terrible disease of the House is not true. Very often they are necessary to keep Governments on the mark. If we produce a cut and dried timetable, which is the remedy of the academicians outside, life will be very much more convenient for the Government, but whether such a system is better for the House of Commons is another matter. I believe that all those considerations should be understood.
I believe that very often the procedures of the House of Commons can be used much more flexibly than many imagine. They can be used to achieve many different objectives. That does not mean that I do not think that we should make changes. However, we should not imagine that the House has worked its way to some of its procedures through anything other than sensible discovery of the best way in which to proceed.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: My right hon. Friend has said that the House of Commons should be a flexible instrument. He will remember that on 3rd November 1975 the Government decided not to accept the recommendation of the Select Committee on Procedure as regards EEC Regulations. Does he agree that an adjustment in that respect, irrespective of any much larger Committee, might improve the situation which gave us the dilemma last time?

Mr. Foot: I shall consider what my hon. Friend has said. If I did not, I am sure that he would ensure that I did. I assure him I shall consider his words. This is not an easy problem to solve. I repeat that once the House passed the European Communities Act it changed the nature of the House in an important respect.
If we are to safeguard the House of Commons despite that change, we must find the means of doing it. I do not believe that we have yet found it. I do not think that anyone would advance that proposition, wherever he may sit. However, I believe that the House of Com-


mons-has sufficient ingenuity, with those with different views in different parts of the House who wish to solve the problems and a Government who are prepared to listen, to solve these problems, even though the solution may not be as perfect as some would have wished, even if we had not embarked on establishing the obstacle in the first place.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdare (Mr. Evans) also wishes to see the House of Commons modernised and to see us proceed faster with the broadcasting of the House. I entirely agree with that. It is a very proper development, particularly in view of the scandalous misreporting, under-reporting and improper reporting of the House of Commons which goes on in practically all the newspapers in the country.
There are only one or two exceptions. The Times is a notable exception. I do not very often say a good word for The Times. It almost sticks in my throat. However, The Times makes an effort that is a bit better than most of the others. Most newspaper reporting is an absolute travesty of what it used to be, even when I came to the House. The Daily Express used to have William Barkley, a brilliant reporter, who reported the affairs of the House so that the House was understood by millions of people up and down the country. One does not

get anything of that sort now. The reporting in newspapers such as the Daily Express, the Sun and others is an absolute disgrace to the journalists. These are the people who preach to us about freedom. They do not have any idea of upholding Parliament. That is a further reason why we have to take some precautions, and broadcasting is one of them, to try to assist in ensuring that people shall know what goes on in the House of Commons.
However, that is a long way from the Easter Recess. I hope that we approach closer to the Easter Recess now, at the end of this marathon speech that I have delivered. I recall that Jonathan Swift described the parliamentary recess as "the lucid interval". The quicker we can reach the lucid interval, the better for parliamentary government.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House, at its rising to-morrow, do adjourn till Monday 26th April.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.

Ordered,
That the Civil Aviation (Navigation Services Charges) (Third Amendment) Regulations 1976 (S.I., 1976, No. 369) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.— [Mr. Snape.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[17TH ALLOTTED DAY],—considered.

EXPENDITURE COMMITTEE (ELEVENTH REPORT)

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That this House takes note of and welcomes the Eleventh Report from the Expenditure Committee in the last session of Parliament (House of Commons Paper No. 534).—[Mr. Snape.]

7.33 p.m.

Mr. James Boyden: This debate is on the Eleventh Report from the Expenditure Committee for the Session 1974–75 on the working of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969.
There are two unusual features about this debate. The first is that, perhaps for the first time, the Government have noted and welcomed the Report. We who are members of the Expenditure Committee welcome the welcome. Perhaps this is a substitute for not answering the Committee's Report earlier.
The right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Whitelaw) raised this very matter of the delay in departmental observations on this Report at Prime Minister's Question Time today, and the Prime Minister replied—partly, I suppose, because he was interested in this particular Report, as he took the Bill through originally—that he would look at it and investigate it. However, it should not be necessary to bother the Prime Minister or for the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border to have to raise the matter in the House, when it should be standard drill for the Departments to react reasonably quickly and with reasonable competence on the recommendations that are made.
Two Departments which are not generally considered absolutely outrageously speedy, the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury, find these days that they are well able to deal with Reports of the Expenditure Committee most expeditiously. To the last Report from the Committee the Treasury gave an answer almost before the ink was dry, and I was moved to write to the Chan-

cellor of the Exchequer to congratulate him on the excellence of the Department in so replying. For some considerable time now, the Ministry of Defence has been replying not quite on a day-to-day basis but certainly on a month-to-month working basis to the investigations and recommendations of the Defence Sub-Committee of the Expenditure Committee.
It is rather unusual to mention civil servants by name in the House, but I should like to refer to the contribution made by the late Sir Michael Cary, whose death was a great blow to the country and to the Ministry of Defence, and not least to the Expenditure Committee. He established the most excellent personal relations with the Defence Sub-Committee of the Expenditure Committee. He convened conferences between the Committee and his leading officials to iron out difficulties. Therefore, in two of the major Departments of State there are good relations, especially in relation to the speed of answering the Committee's Reports, and excellent relations have been established.
On the other hand, there are Departments that are very unsatisfactory in this respect. The Department of Education and Science has two Reports that are two years outstanding for departmental observations. The Expenditure Committee decided to have a debate on both these matters some time ago in order to try to persuade the Department of Education and Science to come forward with answers to the Committee's recommendations, but in the debate the Under-Secretary bumbled on and nothing further has happened. Still the Expenditure Committee does not have the Department's observations on these two Reports.
I hope that tonight the representative Minister of State from the Home Office will be a bit more forthcoming than was the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science on the other occasion, because this is the other unusual feature of the debate. For the second time within my experience—only for the second time—the House is debating an Expenditure Committee Report which has not been the subject of departmental observations. As a general procedure this is not satisfactory. I am hoping that tonight the disaster of the education debate will not be repeated and that we


shall have some firm indications of response to the excellent recommendations of the Social Services Sub-Committee.
The work of this Report has been done by the Social Services and Employment Sub-Committee, of which my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) has been the mainspring. I think that she is the sole survivor of the Committee that started in December 1973, that has survived two General Elections and has been going strong to produce its Report—and an excellent Report it has produced, as I think the Minister of State will say. He will have some difficulty in not saying that, because the Government are welcoming the Report. I cannot think that dissent on the Front Bench could possibly arise—as when a Treasury Minister spoke a little while ago as a Back-Bench Member. This was a somewhat unusual experience. But noting and welcoming a Report is an unusual experience.
This Committee's work is absolutely characteristic of the good work that goes on in the Sub-Committees of the Expenditure Committee. The Committee has enough difficulties with which to contend without the additional difficulties of departmental delays in replying. There need not be delays at all, because Departments appoint liaison officers to these Committees.
In this case there was an officer from the Home Office and one from the Department of Health and Social Security, so very few of the recommendations catch the Departments by surprise. I admit that in this case there are three or four Departments to consult each other. That may be a reasonable cause for some delay, but not the delay that can be seen by looking at the date of the Report—30th July 1975.
The subject matter of the Committee's investigations was the working of the Children and Young Persons Act. For reasons quite unconnected with the Ministers of the Government of the day getting the Act through Parliament, the Act has run into considerable difficulties. There have been two major upheavals affecting the working of the Act, certainly one of which could not be foreseen. The first was the amalgamation of the children's departments with the social services de-

partment of local authorities. That threw the administration into considerable difficulty. Then came the Local Government Act 1972, which added still further to the organisational difficulties of the people working the Act.
The Committee comments that Hertfordshire, which was least affected by local government reorganisation, was on the whole rather better in carrying out the Act because of that fact. Perhaps the blame is better placed on political events than on the people who have been required to operate the Act.
Recommendation 31 is interesting and concerns monitoring the progress of the Children and Young Persons Act. The recommendation is that a monitoring unit should further examine how the Act is working. My hon. Friend's Committee has been doing just that, but I should like to extend the monitoring process further and suggest that perhaps the basic duty of the Government should be to have some kind of monitoring system as a regular drill for all major Acts.
I offer the Expenditure Committee as a means of doing that. Perhaps after three or four years, or sooner, an Act should be committed to the Expenditure Committee or a team of senior civil servants with outside advice to examine how it is working. I have learned from my experience in the House that things never turn out as one expects. That is especially true of those on this side of the House who want to introduce more legislation—there is a comment on that from the Committee—and make changes and reforms. Unless one examines how a measure is working, it seldom will work out as one would hope.
Over the last few years, and certainly since I have been Chairman, all the Sub-Committees of the Expenditure Committee have been working with considerable skill and energy. That applies not least to my hon. Friend's Committee. She chaired it with patience, persistence and a constructive philosophy which has become 40 practical recommendations, all of which are worth adopting. They are cost effective and involve more flexible and efficient administration. My hon. Friend and the members of her Committee should be congratulated on the way in which they tackled the subject. Discussion on it has lasted a long time.
They also deserve praise because their work was done within the Expenditure Committee's resources. There were no expert advisers and not much foreign travel, which is expensive these days. But the Committee was in close touch with the grass roots and with experts and it made a splendid Report.
I shall comment on one or two things in the Report, although I do not want to crab my hon. Friend's speech. I want to draw attention to some of the striking things which the Committee suggests should be put right straight away. The first recommendation is a clarion call which I believe the whole of the British public will support. The recommendation reads:
the practice of remanding young persons to adult prisons should cease forthwith.
The Report says that 40 per cent, of young persons who are committed to prison do not subsequently receive custodial sentences. I do not put any particular blame on any one section of the process which leads to that situation, but it is producing an injustice which the public would not tolerate if they knew about it.
Recommendation 2 reveals a further injustice—the denial of education facilities for some of those young people who fall foul of the law. The Report says that children of compulsory education age who are on remand often receive only two hours' education a day and the Report makes recommendations about that. That is a striking and strong start to the list of recommendations.
There are many other with which I know my hon. Friend will deal. I shall classify them into groups and indicate the way in which the Departments concerned, particularly the Home Office, can obtain cheaper and better administration and a better use of public funds by paying attention to them. That is the main work of the Expenditure Committee. Its work is not necessarily to cut expenditure, but to make existing practices more efficient, cost effective and to get the best value for money.
For example, some of the groups of suggestions involve making the best use of existing staff. Recommendations 5 and 33 are concerned with that. There are suggestions for better consultation between the police and the social services

departments and for reducing the paperwork of those departments. Other recommendations suggest increasing and improving staff, which does not necessarily involve a rise in expenditure. For example, Recommendation 14 suggests that part-timers—qualified and experienced people, often married women—should be brought back into the service. That is reminiscent of the campaign for the married woman returners in education.
Recommendation 16 bears the mark of my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East. It suggests that residential staff need not necessarily reside in the buildings for which they are responsible. There are a series of recommendations about making the maximum use of the various existing facilities. For example, Recommendation 24 suggests that community homes should be used for day as well as for residential care, and Recommendation 25 suggests that local authorities should provide more day care.
Recommendation 26—which I think my hon. Friend regards as a key issue—is that urgent consideration should be given to non-residential forms of care such as intermediate treatment, day care, supervision and fostering. I am particularly interested in the recommendation that education welfare officers should be trained and used for supervising school absentees. I regard as useful the recommendations about secure accommodation.
I end with the Committee's conclusion, which is a sad comment on those of us who want legislation to improve society. Paragraph 167 of the Report reads:
Our enquiry leads us to think that the Act itself or indeed any legislation that might conceivably be passed by Parliament has had and can have no significant effect on the general level of delinquency and general juvenile misbehaviour.
That really puts us in our place. I am fond of a quotation by Pope:
For forms of government let fools contest; Whate'er is best administer'd is best.
I do not believe that in the political context, but perhaps in the modern world we do not pay sufficient attention to the best administration. For one thing, good administration is not newsworthy. It is not a matter of great declamation or excitement.
I pay tribute to the Report because it gets down to the bits and pieces of good administration and makes 40 practical recommendations which are relatively easy to carry out. I hope that the Minister of State—although he cannot say "aye" to all the 40 recommendations at once—will indicate that he welcomes them and that most of them will be carried out, if not immediately, when we return from the recess.

7.50 p.m.

Mr. Edward Gardner: We on this side of the House agree with what the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) has just said about the value of the Report. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) is someone with whose views we do not always agree, but it is agreeable to be able to congratulate her on this occasion as the Chairman of the Sub-Committee and to welcome its Report and this opportunity to debate it.
The conclusions and recommendations of the Committee are very much in line with those of the report by the Society of Conservative Lawyers published two years ago. The problem we all face is the alarming rise in the amount of crime which is being committed by children and young persons—that is, boys and girls under the age of 17. The courts, the police and the local authorities have been unable to deal effectively with the problem or to abate its growth.
The horrifying fact is that as juvenile crime increases, so the age of the offender decreases. In one year in the metropolis of London 1,000 children under the age of 10 had to be dealt with by the police for criminal offences. In 1974, 32,000 children between the ages of 10 and 16 were taken into custody for indictable offences, and 4,500 of them were considered to be hardened criminals. In 1975, almost half of those arrested for burglary in the metropolitan area were juveniles, and so were 35 per cent, of those arrested for robbery and other violent crimes. That experience is being repeated throughout the country.
It is no wonder that magistrates and police have been imbued with a sense of despair when they realise that some of our most persistent and violent

criminals are now under the age of 17. Because of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969, the powers of the juvenile courts have been severely restricted. Magistrates can no longer impose any effective control on delinquents. Instead, they hand over the delinquents to the care of social workers, who, however well intentioned, lack the experience, time, training and facilities to handle the present crisis.
Because of the shortage of facilities, such as community homes, and especially of secure places at those establishments, social workers are all too often compelled to send offenders back to their own homes, which are then used as bases from which to commit further offences. In that way a boy of 14 was reported to have committed 52 offences during a weekend after a first appearance at court The growing hard core of persistent offenders has been able to act on the alarming but correct assumption that children can, if they wish, put their fingers to their nose and commit crimes with virtual impunity.
The only protection against that kind of hardened juvenile offender is the Act. As the Report makes clear, it is a pretty frail and in most cases useless defence against the present threat of juvenile anarchy.

Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman right? The courts have power, for example, to recommend 15-year-olds to the Crown court for borstal training. If there is no penalty, why do the hon. and learned Gentleman and many of his hon. Friends join me in condemning, as does the Report, the fact that so many juveniles end up not only in penal establishments but in local prisons?

Mr. Gardner: I shall deal with that, if the hon. Gentleman will possess himself in patience. I want to come to it under a separate heading.
My point is valid. In most cases the order made by a juvenile court is a care order, although other penalties are available. As the hon. Gentleman is all too well aware, a care order has the effect of handing over the responsibility for dealing with the child. Thereafter the social worker, whose responsibility no one envies and whose difficulties we do not underestimate, must make up his mind


whether the child goes to a community home, is boarded out, is fostered or is the subject of whatever other course may be proper and possible.
It is essential to recognise, as the Report does, that the Act is by no means to be written off as a total failure. For many children its provisions are helpful. As the British Association of Social Workers says in its memorandum published in the evidence on which the Committee founded its Report, the Act provides an:
opportunity for helping and rehabilitating children whose problems are primarily of an emotional nature.
The Act in effect concentrates on the "treatment" of offenders on the assumption that they are "mentally or emotionally disturbed". But not all children are mentally or emotionally disturbed when they commit offences.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists told the Sub-Committee that
the vast majority of delinquents show no evidence of psychiatric disorders at all.
Magistrates and their clerks told the Committee—and any parent or anyone who has had any experience of dealing with children will no doubt be easily persuaded to agree—that
some children commit wrong acts in full knowledge of their nature and need to have the consequences sharply brought home to them.
The Report recognises that
There is a limit to the amount of delinquent behaviour which society is prepared to tolerate.
One might add that many people believe that the limit has already been reached, if not passed.
The heart of the problem is the failure of the 1969 Act to distinguish between the disturbed child, who may or may not at the same time be delinquent, and the young, hardened criminal, together with the transfer of responsibility from the juvenile courts to social workers, overburdened as they are after Seebohm with other duties. The social workers have not been able to cope and cannot cope with that hard core of persistent young offenders.
Instead of a care order passing the child over to the social worker, the court should have power to make a residential care order for a maximum of two years.

specifying the name of the community home to which the child should be sent. The child should be kept there and there should be a right of appeal to the Crown court against such an order. The Sub-Committee suggests that there should by a secure care order similar to the one I have just suggested but that it should be made only after a second appearance We think that in certain cases it should be possible to make such an order after a first appearance.
We support the recommendation that, where a court makes a supervision order, in proper cases conditions should be attached, to which the juvenile offender would have to submit and for breach of which he could be brought back to the court for an alternative sentence—for example, a fine or an attendance centre order.
We are attracted by the Sub-Committee's view that the present powers of a court to defer sentence in the case of adult offenders could be used in the case of juvenile offenders. We also support the recommendation that detention centre orders should be made for a period of not more than two days if necessary so as to provide shock treatment for juvenile offenders. We are impressed by the success in this country and abroad of the fostering of disturbed and delinquent children. We are anxious to see sanctions for the non-payment of fines and we should like fines to be imposed on parents who are shown to have been in part responsible for the offences which their children have committed.
One of the most serious weaknesses of the Children and Young Persons Act is in its truancy provisions. We take the view, as do the members of the Sub-Committee, that the provisions of the Act are not sufficient and cannot in present circumstances be looked upon with any confidence as a means of dealing with truancy. Between 70 per cent, and 80 per cent, of all children who come into conflict with the law begin by absenting themselves from school. We consider that the present provision which makes it necessary for the authorities to establish not only truancy but that the child in question is in need of care should be amended, so that more orders can be made and more cases of truancy satisfactorily established before the courts.
We agree with the Sub-Committee that better use should be made of existing facilities. This is an inappropriate time to suggest the vast expenditure which would have to be undertaken for the building of more community homes or the endless provision of secure places, but there are at present resources which are not being used as well as they might be. We should, therefore, look hard at the way in which some local authorities are neglecting opportunities to co-operate with neighbouring local authorities. It is essential that the planning done by the regional planning committees should be implemented by the local authorities concerned.
One pressing feature which disturbed the Sub-Committee and which also disturbs the House is the division of responsibility between the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Security. The Sub-Committee takes the view, which we share, that one way of making as certain as we can that resources are properly used and that the administration is as efficient as possible is to place the burden of this problem on one Government Department. The Sub-Committee has selected for that purpose the Department of Health and Social Security, and we should consider that suggestion carefully.
The absence of a White Paper nine months after the Report was published demonstrates the way in which confusion arises and delay is engendered when two Departments have divided responsibility for the production of a document. It is a question of two Departments having more than a single thought. The inhibition we suffer from the absence of that White Paper is a strong reason for giving responsibility to one Department.
The first of the 40 recommendations of the Sub-Committee is perhaps the most important. The Sub-Committee recommends
That the practice of remanding young persons to adult prisons should cease forthwith.
Alternative arrangements must be made. We thoroughly agree with and support that recommendation.
This Report was printed on 30th July last year. So far as one can discover, the Government have neither said nor done anything about it. Some nine

months after the publication of a Report containing strong, sensible and clear recommendations, our adult prisons still contain young offenders. On 29th February this year the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, in reply to a Question tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims), said that there were 24 persons under the age of 17 in local prisons. This, in our view, is scandalous. It is the Government's unavoidable and immediate duty to bring an end to this state of affairs.
Boys on remand pending sentence by the Crown courts, or those who have been certified as unruly, find themselves in adult prisons when there are no remand or young-prisoner centres. But it must be noted with extreme caution that there are no young-offender establishments for girls on remand. The result, as the Report makes clear, is that girls under the age of 17 are being sent to adult prisons. The damage that can be done by a practice of that kind can last for a lifetime and can injure not only the girls but society itself.
The Prime Minister at Question Time this afternoon promised my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Whitelaw) that he intends to examine the working of the Children and Young Persons Act. The Government say that they note and welcome the Report, but we want them to do more than that. We want them to take action, and to do so as a matter of urgency.

8.12 p.m.

Mrs. Renée Short: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) and to the hon. and learned Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner) for their remarks about our Report and for the support they have given to us in our attempts to persuade the Government to produce a White Paper in reply to our Committee's 40 recommendations.
I regard as a matter of the greatest possible concern the fact that a debate on a Report of this kind, on a subject of such great importance which has atrracted so much publicity outside as well as inside the House, should take place when we do not know what the Government spokesman in the House will say. We all share that concern.


The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) in an earlier debate today referred to the problem of improving and enhancing the status of Parliament. The attitude adopted by the Government rather than enhancing our status will have the opposite effect. It provides no encouragement to Select Committees, which do extremely hard work, meeting regularly week after week in an effort to arrive at sound conclusions. I hope that the Government will take on board the remarks made on this matter from both sides of the House.
I was slightly mollified by the fact that the motion
takes note of and welcomes the Eleventh Report from the Expenditure Committee.
The original proposal was simply a "take note" motion. We had other proposals ready to hand, but it was not necessary to take any further action. Since the Government have welcomed our Report, we hope that all our recommendations will be accepted.
Both Departments concerned have considerable responsibilities, and it is true that in this and in other areas of activity where more than one Department is involved that very fact can be used as an excuse for delay, lack of improvement in conditions, failure to provide more resources or to take action when recommendations are made. This is a matter which must be examined by the Prime Minister, because it is his responsibility to re-allocate duties in Departments.
The inquiry conducted by the Committee was absorbing and interesting. My concern in this whole area of activity arises from the fact that a number of young people of school age have been sent to adult prisons on remand, with certificates of unruliness attached to their cases. I visited girls of 14 or 15 who had been sent to Holloway Prison, and I later followed them to the community homes to which they had been sent. I engaged in considerable correspondence with some of them and I became convinced that the Expenditure Committee, of which I have the honour to be Chairman, should investigate as thoroughly as possible the work of the Children and Young Persons Act as it relates to young offenders. We were circumscribed by that legislation and that proved to be an enormous area of investigation.
We began our work in December 1973. That work was interrupted by two General Elections, in February and October 1974. We finally completed our work in July 1975. We held a Press conference in September 1975 hoping that by then the Government had carried out a great deal of preparatory work on the recommendations and that we should have a reply by Christmas. In view of the importance of the subject, that is the time scale I had in mind.
The list of witnesses who gave oral evidence and the much longer list of those who submitted long memoranda but who were not called before us illustrate the difficulties we faced. There was much conflicting evidence given by organisations and individuals speaking from a wealth of experience. Much public concern has been expressed about the way in which the Act was working and we were left in no doubt at all that strong views were held.
Judging from meetings I have addressed since our Report was published, there is no doubt about the strong feelings held by those who welcomed the 1969 Act. They felt that it was the beginning of a new era in an area of activity that was already difficult and complicated. It is an area in which there have been long periods of difficulty and lack of success. People felt particularly disappointed about the effects of the legislation.
As a Committee we had to weigh carefully the evidence received and no doubt our Report has not satisfied everybody. But we are most grateful to all the witnesses who helped us in our inquiries. I hope that they have read our Report with interest.
During our inquiry we visited a number of community homes and intermediate treatment centres. That gave us a unique opportunity to meet staff who were trying to cope with a growing problem. I should like to place on record our gratitude for their help and admiration of their dedicated understanding of young people in trouble.
We were anxious to learn as much as we could from other countries with similar problems, but perhaps with different attitudes in coping with those problems. Therefore, we visited Sweden, Holland, West Germany and Denmark. We met Ministers, civil servants, doctors, and


social workers, and we visited a number of establishments of different kinds. It was a rewarding experience and we are grateful to all those who talked to us so freely and gave us such a valuable insight into their methods and ideas.
Finally, I wish to thank the members of my Committee, and particularly our hard-working Clerk, who survived it all with good humour. Despite wildly different attitudes at the outset of our inquiry, I think it can be said that our Report reached clear and united conclusions. I am grateful for the support of my colleagues on the Committee.
It was clear from the outset of our inquiry that the work of the Act had been adversely affected by several factors—the change of Government in 1970, which came very soon after the Act was introduced, the reorganisation of local government in 1972, the upheavals following the Seebohm Report, and the lack of adequate resources to cope with the general increase in deliquency in all age groups, including, unfortunately, young people in the 10 to 17 age group.
I have mentioned the division of responsibility among different Departments. I say at once that I understand very well the difficulties of magistrates who feel that, because of the lack of resources to supplement the Act, young people needing care in a community home are all too often sent back home, often to a delinquent, uncaring background. Here is the key to much of the difficulty we face today in this whole area.
I understand, too, the view of social workers, who point to bad social conditions and uncaring parents as being contributory factors to juvenile delinquency. I agree with all the witnesses who pointed out that society would not tolerate an ever-escalating level of delinquent behaviour, to which the hon. and learned Gentleman has quite rightly drawn attention. The major problem is to determine the best and most fruitful method of dealing with these young people, and that is not easy.
The Committee was very deeply concerned about the number of boys and girls remanded to adult prisons. The Act was intended to remove children from the formal atmosphere of the courts and

places of detention, but because there is a shortage of accommodation for girls, especially 14-year-old girls with a care order, the local authorities ask the magistrates' courts for an unruliness certificate—often with a rather wide interpretation of the word "unruly"—and unruly youngsters find themselves in prison.
Over 3,000 of these certificates are issued annually, and it is worth noting that over 40 per cent, of those remanded in prison subsequently receive non-custodial sentences, but the damage has been done when young people, whether girls or boys, are put in adult prisons. It is no use the Minister from the Home Office telling us that they are kept separate. I have seen how girls in Holloway are kept separate from the adult women—prostitutes, alcoholics, infanticides and the rest. They are placed in the hospital wing of the prison, but doors are open and young people can hear a great deal that they ought not to hear at that very tender age. They can also see things happening. This leaves a permanent blot on young persons who are so treated.
In 1974—my figures are rather later than those quoted in the Report—4,509 boys and 140 girls all under 17 and 16,206 boys and 627 girls aged 17 to 20 were sent to remand centres on remand. That is a large number. In addition, 255 boys and 131 girls under 17 were sent to local prisons on remand, and 3,259 boys and 856 girls aged 17 to 20 were also sent to prison on remand.
This is a very worrying position, indeed. The Committee condemned the practice and its first recommendation to the Government was that the practice of sending young persons to adult prisons should cease at once, and that alternative arrangements should be made, but it is very clear that nothing has been done in this regard.
When a juvenile case is adjourned, the juvenile is usually sent home. If the court thinks that that is unsuitable, he may be remanded to the care of the local authority. He may still be sent home—if there is no accommodation for him at the local police cell or prison—on an unruliness certificate.
We were concerned to find that some areas have no secure accommodation at all, even though the regional planning


committees have made their recommendations. On 11th March, the Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security said that in March 1975 there were 59 secure places in observation and assessment centres in England and Wales and, according to the regional plans, some 200 more are to be provided. Only 18 of these places are currently under construction. This does not indicate exactly a head of steam behind the provision. Therefore, the evidence that was placed before us again indicated a certain amount of contradiction. We had estimates of the need for secure places varying from the 600 suggested by the regional planning committees to 2,500 recommended by the Residential Care Association.
We think as a Committee that it would be a mistake to invest large resources in providing secure places on this scale, but we think that there should be some secure accommodation in each area, preferably not provided in isolated units or large units but attached to community homes. These are especially needed for the growing number of girls who are committing offences.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: It would be helpful to the House, certainly to me, if the hon. Lady could define her terms a little more closely. I share her concern about young children being put into prison, but I am not quite with her if she talks of the age group from 17 to 20, bearing in mind that many young men under the age of 20 serve in the Armed Forces. Will she say whether what she is proposing is better accommodation for the group up to the age of, say, 16 or 17, or whether she is going all the way up to the age of 20?

Mrs. Short: I was referring to young persons sent to prison on remand, on unruliness certificates—not sentenced but sent to prison because no secure accommodation is available. I pointed out that in many areas of the country there is no secure accommodation at all. We seek to remedy that, so that the cases needing secure accommodation for varying periods can be provided for in that way.
I wish to bring to the attention of the House the alternatives to residential care, because I think that these are probably the most important of our recommendations. Quite clearly, I cannot deal with

all the recommendations that the Committee made, nor would the House wish to be bored by my embarking on that course. I hope that other members of the Committee will pick up other recommendations about which they feel strongly.
The alternatives to residential care provide considerable scope for success without the enormous outlay of capital involved in building large secure homes and the cost of staffing them once they have been built. There are difficulties in staffing them and this is an acute problem. We believe very strongly, however, that alternatives must be sought.
One alternative is provided under the Act in intermediate treatment. This is a means of providing care and guidance for a delinquent child within the community by methods which are well founded psychologically, namely, by offering him new interests, by stimulating new ideas, and by offering new relationships with caring adults. In many ways, this is a very flexible way of dealing with problem children, because each child can have a scheme almost tailor-made to his own needs, based on his own interests and on whatever skill and talents he possesses.
I feel very hopeful about this. We visited Hertfordshire and saw what promised to be a very successful intermediate treatment scheme. But, again, the Committee regrets that the Department of Health and Social Security was very slow in giving guidance to the regions and in getting more schemes off the ground. This scheme was in the Act, and it is a provision which can be made without very much outlay of money, yet the Department really left the local authorities to flounder around and work out their own schemes without giving them the guidance they needed.
I have a great deal of sympathy with the view of the British Association of Social Workers—that regional intermediate treatment schemes should have been organised before regional plans for more traditional accommodation in homes were made. If this had been done, perhaps there would not have been the same anxiety about the shortage of secure accommodation. When we talk about the development of community homes with the secure accommodation that we are proposing, we are discussing a capital


investment of millions of pounds compared with the much more modest expenditure of a few thousand pounds by a local authority to set up intermediate treatment schemes.
There is one word of advice which comes through clearly in this part of our Report and the recommendations that we made which I hope that the Department will take to heart. It is that it is no use thinking that the traditional youth organisations like the Scouts, Guides and youth clubs will work for these youngsters, who generally are unclub-bable. They need something very different. They need a great deal of imagination and skill in finding out what their interests are and then putting those attributes into some kind of scheme which will cater for them.
Directors of social services need a freer hand to develop these schemes and somehow the resources from the Government have to be provided for the local authorities so that they do not rely on the rather restricted amounts through the rate support grants or whatever may be available for local authority social services as a whole. Let us face it: the expenditure of money on schemes of this sort is not popular either among councillors or among the general public. They would prefer to see the money spent in other ways.
The Government have the job of seeing that the lead is given to providing the resources that everyone working in this field—professional organisations and voluntary organisations—is clearly saying are needed urgently. I hope very much that the Government will make these resources available and that local authority finance committees will not be tight-fisted when new ideas are put before them, bearing in mind that it costs anything from £3,000 to £7,000 a year to keep a young person in a community home or a secure assessment centre. Indeed, I heard the chairman of a social services committee say tonight that it now costs £8,500 a year. It is a fantastic amount.
We recommend that there should be a conscious and clear shift from expenditure in capital money of this hind in providing secure accommodation on the scale which has been suggested by some wit-

nesses to care within the community, because this is much less expensive and very much more meaningful. Purposeful community care can be provided with this shift of resources.
Of course skilled staff are needed in community homes, and this has been part of the difficulty that we have come across. Skilled staff are also needed to run intermediate treatment schemes successfully. It cannot be said that there would be any saving of money on skilled professional staff. But certainly on new buildings, domestic and ancillary staff and all the equipment needed in a residential care situation there are considerable savings to be made.
We recommend that the Department should encourage local authorities to go ahead establishing new schemes for children in care or at risk, with or without a court order. Youngsters of this kind could attend the intermediate treatment scheme and receive benefit and obviously could be prevented from continuing on the path of delinquency.
The final major recommendation that I wish the House to consider very carefully is the development of the fostering of disturbed children and young people as an alternative to residential homes. This is not usual in Britain, but on our visits abroad we saw how much progress had been made, particularly in Denmark and Sweden. There 80 per cent, or more of children and young persons of this kind are fostered. We appear to be very shy and timid about starting to try out such schemes even when they have been proved in other countries.
In Denmark and Sweden over 80 per cent, of children and young persons are fostered and residential accommodation in homes is regarded as a temporary measure only, to be provided on a very short-term basis—a matter of weeks—until suitable fostering arrangements can be made. In Holland fostering is being developed and that country has accepted the ideas of Denmark and Sweden.
During our memorable visit to Sweden in particular, a visit that made a tremendous impression on us, we visited one of its most successful foster parents who had fostered several of the most difficult kinds of cases with which we or any other country has to deal, the adolescent drug addict. These are very


difficult cases with long records of difficulties with the law. This lady lived in a wooden house, typically Swedish, beside a beautiful lake, an idyllic place. Youngsters absconded many, many times. They did so over and over again, seeking the bright lights and other attractions of Stockholm. But she herself brought them back, or they were brought back by the police or social workers, and she began all over again. She had perhaps four disturbed youngsters at a time living in her family with her own children and her husband as members of the family.
These children came from many different parts of Sweden, which is a very large country. The foster mother made a point of visiting the children's families, getting to know them and seeking their support. This is a very important part of the treatment. She and her husband were remarkable people and we were delighted to find that one or two of our more progressive local authorities have already started a similar scheme. I hope that they will be equally successful.
It is not easy to find high calibre foster parents. Fostering does not mean that children can just be dumped in any family in the hope that all will be well. Very careful selection of foster parents is needed. Ideally, parents with experience as teachers or social workers or of work in residential homes or similar activities are sought. They, too, need training before they can embark on this very responsible job. When a youngster has been placed with foster parents, those foster parents need constant care and a great deal of support from social workers, psychiatrists and others. It is a joint and communal effort, but it is well worth consideration.
The important lesson we learned from Denmark and Sweden is that fostering parents are doing a very important job in the community and should be extremely well paid. They have to be well paid for taking on very difficult children with little relief from being under constant strain. In Sweden the pay is £70 per week for fostering the most difficult cases, with tax-free allowances for expenses, including clothing and breakages, which can occur when there are disturbed youngsters in the family. The matching of the right child with the right family needs to be done with great skill and care, and nothing is more damaging to a

disturbed, unhappy child than frequent changes from one home to another. The whole object of the exercise is then defeated.
In Denmark the social worker takes the young person or child to two or three families and is allowed to choose the family to which the child finally goes. That system has very good results.
We have recommended that every effort should be made to encourage fostering in Britain. Regional planning committees should be asked to seek suitable foster parents in their areas and to start fostering schemes of their own. Carefully done, we feel that such a scheme offers great hope for the future.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I agree with her entirely and I endorse fully and strongly what the hon. Lady said. However, does she agree that one of the reasons why the scheme has been successful on the Continent is that genuine family care is providing the young disturbed person with security, that within that home the new parents of that young person are providing the motivation, and that that motivation enables the young person to overcome his or her problems?

Mrs. Short: I agree absolutely. That is an important aspect of the work. It may be a completely new experience for a young person to be in a caring situation in a family. Previously these young persons have been battered both mentally and physically—some since birth. We know that these cases occur and great damage is done to children and young people in that unhappy situation.
Another important proposal is that in the local area more must be done to bring together all those who are concerned about delinquency among the young. Teachers have an important rôle to play. They are often in a position to indicate, almost before anything happens, the families where children are at risk and are likely to get into difficulty. School welfare officers can often help, because truancy is often an early sign of difficulties.
Social workers, school welfare officers, magistrates, probation officers and the police should be involved and brought together. They should have regular contact. They should not work in isolated groups, some of them not speaking to


each other at all, as happens in some areas.
After-care is required. More research should be carried out by the Department into what happens after young people go out of care. We need follow-up procedures to see the extent to which what has been done for the young person has been successful.
We need more voluntary help. Individuals and organisations should be mobilised to help with advice bureaux. In Holland, advice is given on a confidential basis. The public must understand what is being done in the treatment of all offenders, young or adult. We must understand why apparently similar cases are treated differently. The public must become our allies in the care and treatment provided. It is a challenge to all of us to see that public opinion understands and cares about the problems of young offenders.
I hope that the Government will now give a lead and do their part in making sure that the public understand that something new needs to be done, that a shift of resources from buildings to persons must take place, if we are to make any progress at all.

8.44 p.m.

Mr. Michael Mates: I am grateful for the opportunity to intervene briefly in the debate. I should like to try to put some flesh and bones on what has inevitably been an abstract discussion of a Report by mentioning the specific case of the daughter of a constituent who is at the moment in Holloway Prison. I informed the Minister that I was going to raise this matter. I am not seeking to make political capital, but should like to try to highlight with a living example some of the problems referred to in the Report and to endorse what the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) said about ceasing straight away the practice of remanding children to adult prisons.
The child in question is on remand in Holloway Prison, where she has been for over a month. She has never been in trouble before. She was detained after the commission of an offence in my constituency. She appeared before the juvenile court magistrates. I am in no way criticising the actions of any of the people who have been working hard to try to find a solution to this particularly

difficult problem. There is not one, and that is why it must be up to the Government to make the necessary arrangements to find one.
The girl has been remanded twice and is still in Holloway Prison, where I saw her this afternoon. I should like to say how grateful I am to those who made the arrangements and gave me every possible assistance to see for myself the conditions in which she is living. I believe that she is getting as good a treatment as it is possible to give to children, but, as the hon. Lady the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) said, she is not segregated because there are no longer the facilities to do this. She is with adult prisoners in the hospital wing. However hard the authorities try and however much sympathy and compassion they show—and they are showing this to the maximum—this cannot but be an experience which will be with the child for the rest of her life. This must be wrong.
The real difficulty is that there was no alternative, once a decision had been taken—again, I am not arguing about the decision taken by the courts and the police—that the girl should be detained until the charge was heard in the Crown court. There is nowhere else she can go. She cannot be remanded into care, because in our region there are no secure facilities. That was the only alternative, although it was deeply repugnant to the police, social workers and the clerk of the court—to whom I spoke—to have to do this.
One question which worries me concerns the chart on page 26 of the Report, which shows the progress which has been made over both secure observation and assessment places for young people in secure long-term accommodation. The hon. Lady mentioned 59 secure places and said that, because of the size of the problem, the boys seem to get the lion's share. Nevertheless, one thing which concerns me is that the social worker who was trying hard to find an alternative to detaining this child in prison was not aware what secure observation and assessment or, indeed, accommodation places were available in other regions.
I wonder whether this is where bureaucracy is not being as efficient as it might be. Although there are no facilities


available within the region of which East Hampshire is part, I have found on inquiry at the Department of Health and Social Security that there were six places in another area in South Norwood, another four places in Shepperton, another two in Greenacres in Wiltshire and another six in the West Country.
What worries me is that none of the social workers concerned was aware of the places available in other regional planning committee areas. When I asked what the procedure was—and I asked that of the social worker, the Private Secretary to the Minister of State and the Governor of Holloway Prison this afternoon—the answer was that "The strings are drawn together by the Department in London".
That may be a way of doing it if one can guarantee that it will work, but until there is adequate accommodation it might be preferable if, at local authority level and, most important of all, at the level of the social worker himself, people knew where to look, even if one was only to be told that the places were already filled and that there was a long waiting list. It is disturbing that someone who was trying his best to obtain alternative secure accommodation was not aware of the places listed in the chart, which the Department assures me exist. The queue for these places may be endless, but it would be helpful if social workers were able to communicate across the board to establish whether or not there was a vacancy for even a short period.
I do not want to criticise those who are doing a remarkably good job, but the child will now stay in Holloway for at least another month before going to the Crown court. The problem then arises of what sort of institution, if any, she should be committed to for remedial treatment. Here again, the Report highlights the deficiencies.
I fully endorse the recommendations that have been made. The first and foremost is that the practice of putting children into adult establishments must stop. Surely that does not mean vast capital expenditure, but only a little ingenuity and some adjustments within establishments which are not fully secure to make even a small part of them fully secure. I cannot believe that that suggestion cannot be attacked urgently for the good of

the thousands of children who go in and out of these adult establishments and, whatever crime they may or may not have committed, receive an experience which can only damage them and reduce the chances of success of those who are trying to help them.

8.52 p.m.

Miss Joan Lestor: I think we would all agree with what the hon. and learned Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner) said about the rise in crime among young people. I do not want to pursue that matter to a great extent except to say that one of things that the Report highlights is what is happening in the overall picture of crime. It said that the rise in juvenile crime was almost exactly paralleled by the general rise in crime. In other words, our children are no worse and no better than we are. We must consider the whole question of crime and its causes in our society generally.
The Report is concerned almost entirely with the workings of the Children and Young Persons Act. It says that many of the matters discussed are relevant to all children who come into care, for whatever reason.
I do not want to criticise what the hon. and learned Gentleman said about the vicious nature of some of the crimes committed by young people, because that is true, but we have to make some distinctions. The root of juvenile crime is not to be found in the child who is judged to be disturbed or mentally sick. Both the National Council for Civil Liberties and the British Association of Social Workers distinguished between the child who is psychiatrically disturbed and the child who comes to crime because of disturbances in his physical and emotional background.
I am not trying to argue—although there are connections—that the only cause of juvenile crime is material poverty in the sense that we know it. All the bodies interviewed stressed the connection between physical and emotional deprivation and crime among young people. What concern me are the areas of care which are not specifically concerned with children who go into the care of the local authorities and others through the courts or because they have committed crimes.
The Report refers several times to the shortage of residential staff and the turnover of such staff. We recently passed legislation arising out of the Houghton recommendations concerned with children in long-term care, many of them fostered for long periods. The Ministers at the Department of Health and Social Security know how much I welcomed the recommendations of that Report.
I am concerned not only with the aspects of the Eleventh Report which stress how we should monitor what happens to these children but also with what happens to some children who go into the care of a local authority through no fault of their own. One child whom I have known personally for a number of years is well on the way to becoming an anti-social individual. Yet I wonder at the end of the day who will stand up and ask "What happened to him and how can we prevent it from happening to others?"
That child is nearly 15 and came into the care of the local authority more or less at birth. He was born to a mother who was educationally subnormal and who had spent at least nine years from the age of four in the care of the local authority. He did not know his father. He was successfully fostered with foster-parents who wanted to adopt him. This wish was conveyed to the mother, who insisted on re-establishing a relationship with her son.
I regret to say that that was actively encouraged by the social worker and that the child was brought out of the foster home and returned to his mother nine times. The foster-parents said ultimately that they could stand it no longer. The child was showing signs of becoming disturbed. He was becoming a bed-wetter and a petty thief.
After that, he went into a children's home. The mother married again and had two more children, both of whom were in the care of the local authority. She was encouraged to have the child back with her permanently after he had spent a few weekends at home. Subsequently the mother left her husband, taking the child with her. The child then ran away and went back to his foster home, only to find that his foster-

parents did not want him. So he went back into a children's home.
He is now in a boarding school, paid for by the local authority, and has no contact with his mother, whom he obviously hates. He is showing all the signs of a very disturbed boy. My plea is that with children in care—whether they have come into care because they have committed some crime or through no fault of their own—we should know what is happening to them. I do not believe that large numbers of people really know some of the things which happen to children in care. I pay tribute to the social workers, residential staff, and probation officers, who do a magnificent job, but there is a great deal wrong with the situation and we should look at it.
Many children are successfully rehabilitated and make good citizens, but there is a common thread running through many of them. We have, in fact, created many of the anti-social attitudes which they later exhibit. Who will make sure that what has happened to the child I have referred to does not happen to any others? Recent legislation has gone a long way to favour the interest of the child.
What disturbed me about the Maria Colwell case, the case I have described and many others was that social workers were constantly saying they had to think of the mother and what would be good for her and give her confidence. In the Maria Colwell case, it was said that if Maria was not stopped from seeing her foster-parents her mother would be robbed of the confidence to act as a mother to the child she had not seen for several years.
For several years I had living in my home a large number of young children below school age. Many of them were taken into care by local authorities, not because they were delinquents, but because they had no parents to care for them. I know from what happened to some of these children that this is one of the roots of some of the anti-social behaviour we see today.
In the Committee's recommendations, the question of staffing of residential establishments applies right across the board—from young children through to


young offenders. I was horrified to see—although I knew it went on—that agencies were advertising for temporary staff for the residential care of children.
This means that in the area of help for young offenders, which is often the least attractive work but where there is the greatest need, we are having the greatest turnover of staff and the greatest number of inexperienced staff. We are denying the children the very thing we hope to bring them when we take them into care. We say that we want to give them a permanent relationship with somebody with whom they can identify, and who will care for them and give them motivation to go on in the right way. These children are robbed of this relationship.
It is bad enough when a child from a normal background is denied a positive, substantive relationship. How much worse is it for the many youngsters who are taken into care. The cost in antisocial behaviour of the lack of this sort of relationship is something which disturbs me greatly. I am also disturbed at the turnover of staff and their lack of training, and that it is necessary to advertise for someone to pop in two or three days a week to help care for these youngsters.
I agree with all hon. Members who have urged alternatives to residential care. I wonder whether people know what life can be like for any child in a children's home. The person who puts the children to bed does not necessarily get them up in the morning. This sort of thing can be very important for young children.
Last week, I asked in the House how many children in care had no contact with parents or relatives. The Minister at the Department of Health and Social Security regretted that the information was not available. It is vital that we should know these figures. There are many children who are put into care, through the courts or for other reasons, whose sole human contact is with a drifting number of residential workers whom they have for only a few weeks or months of their lives. I know of children who have been in care for four or five years and have had as many as six social workers. The idea with children in care was to have an individual with whom they could talk,

who would take a particular interest in them and to whom they could go with any troubles. But this has not happened. I am pleased that the Report has highlighted this fact.
The turnover of staff and the number of relationships that a young person is expected to establish is astronomical. The original idea may have been good, but the results have not materialised.
I also asked last week how many children had been in the care of local authorities for more than two years. Once again the information was not available, although I gather that, because of the way statistics are to be compiled in future, it will soon be known. It is very important.
In the last few years we have lost the people from outside who used to be uncles and aunties to the youngsters in care and provide them with contact outside the walls of residential accommodation. That practice tended to diminish in the past few years.
I believe that we must try to get a commitment from people that for 15 years, for example, they will attach themselves to a young child whose future prospects are pretty grim and who goes into care so that it can have a permanent relationship with someone. Such a commitment might give motivation to those who are very often drifters in residential work.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short), I have interviewed youngsters who have been in care. Very often the youngsters who have been in care in remand homes and hostels do not even know the surnames of those who have looked after them. Presumably they were drifters. Maybe they stayed for a few months or so. Many youngsters who have been in care would not know how to contact these people even if they wanted to do so. I have mentioned the number of child care officers that many deprived youngsters have had. If we could achieve some more permanent relationship, we might begin to make a little more progress.
I strongly support the Committee's view that the adoption of the Seebohm recommendations did not make it necessary to abandon all specialisation within local authority social service departments.

Mrs. Millie Miller: But they did it.

Miss Lestor: The Seebohm recommendations did not mean that the departments had to abandon specialisation. I believe that there has been far too wide an interpretation of the Seebohm recommendations.
I strongly support the idea that those who are dealing with children should know something about children and that those who are dealing with old people should know something about old people. None of us, however able we may be, can know everything about all these matters. It is dangerous to know a little about a lot of subjects and to be put forward as an expert.
There is no doubt in my mind that there is a strong need to try to recruit as social workers older men and women who have some experience of life and life's problems. They are much more likely to create a rapport with children, and especially with other adults. Irrespective of how much training there is or how able younger men and women may be, we shall not be able to get over the barriers of age and lack of experience. The recommendation is made that we should get people with experience and training into the service.
I strongly support the recommendation that we should find out what happens to children when their care orders expire. We should find out what treatment they have had, what opportunities they have had and what has benefited them. We should also discover whether they have been the subject of court orders or whether they have gone into care because no one else was available to care for them. We should discover what facilities we provide for those who emerge from care. Are there hostels for them? We know that there are not.
Many children are on their own from the time they are 17. Many of them are glad to be on their own so that they can get away from the restrictions of residential establishments. If that is so, there must be something wrong. We must investigate any possible shortcomings.
I believe that it was the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton)—if it was not him, it was another good-looking hon. Gentleman—who asked about the monitoring of children who come out of

care. He was told that such monitoring did not take place.
My final point concerns paragraph 130 of the Report, which states:
A large majority of young offenders are educationally backward … The education officer at Rochester Borstal said that the boys in the remedial reading course were only half as much at risk of committing further offences as those on other courses.
The Committee found, quite rightly, that it did not want to comment too much about the connection of educational backwardness with juvenile crime and anti-social behaviour. I believe that that is right. But we also know that there is at least some connection between the child who feels he is a failure and the way in which he reacts to society.
In that connection, the Committee rightly says that the educational welfare service is of vital importance, and it goes on to deplore, as I deplore, the small number of education welfare workers who have had any training at all in the work they are supposed to be doing. If there is a key or any connection at all between the backwardness of some young offenders and the need for extra help, I believe that it is the need for training and for better relationships in this sector, which are long overdue.
I do not want to continue my speech much longer as many other hon. Members wish to speak. All of them have special avenues that they consider to be of the utmost importance. I believe that most of the recommendations of the Committee are well worth considering. It has highlighted a number of problems about which we cannot be glib. Neither can we be dogmatic about them, because we do not know all the answers. Perhaps we have only begun to ask some of the questions.
As someone with some experience in this matter at a personal level, and arising out of recent legislation and the Report, I believe that we need a full inquiry in great depth about what is happening to children who come into public care, whether what we are offering them meets their requirements, and what we can do to ensure that young people will cease to mirror what many adults are now doing and begin to show that they can withstand the many hazards of our society and begin to help us to build a better one.

9.11 p.m.

Mr. Mark Carlisle: The hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor) and my hon. Friend the Member for Petersfield (Mr. Mates) have both given graphic examples from their own knowledge of the effect of the whole working of the Children and Young Persons Act and the effect of a care order on individual cases. I should like to return to the more general subject of the Act as a whole.
I am most impressed by what has been said in the Report by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) about the failings and shortcomings of the Act. I hope that I can claim to speak with at least some knowledge in this area, being originally the Opposition Front Bench spokesman when the Act was going through the House and then later the Minister in the Home Office responsible for the implementation of the Act in 1970.
It has always been my view that the Act is rather like the curate's egg: it is good in parts and it is bad in parts. I think that when in opposition previously we made it clear when the Bill was going through the House that our view was that certain parts of it should be implemented and certain parts should be delayed. In the Home Office in 1970 we certainly attempted to implement those parts of the Act with which we had agreed when in opposition.
It is quite fashionable today to attack the Act for everything and to say that it is wholly bad. I do not believe that that is so. I still believe in the underlying philosophy of those parts of the Act that we chose to implement.
I believe, as the Report points out and as I believe the Act intended, that we should try to see that more children who commit crimes are dealt with outside the courts entirely, through schemes such as the police juvenile liaison scheme—and I am glad to see that that is happening. As the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East emphasised in her speech, where possible children should be dealt with within the community rather than be taken out of the community. I believe in the intention of the flexibility in the supervision order where it can be combined with a form of intermediate treatment which will

encourage greater training of the child' within the community, which in many ways I look upon as the alternative of the community service order for the adult offender. I regret that it appears from this Report that schemes of intermediate treatment have not yet been widely implemented.
I still believe that where care orders are made, it is right that there should be the flexibility which is inherent in the Act. That gives the social services departments greater opportunity and more time to decide on the type of community home to be used, whether the child should be fostered, and how long a child should stay in a community home. Those matters can be considered more deeply by those in whose care a child is put than by a court.
When dealing with juvenile offenders we must remember that our main aim is to care for the interests of the child. In attempting to reform that child we must ensure that the juvenile delinquent of today does not become the hardened criminal of a later generation.
I still support all the underlying philosophies and aims of the Act. But it would be foolish for us to pretend that things have not gone wrong in practice—that is clear from the Report. I therefore ask myself a rhetorical question. What has gone wrong? I hope that some of my comments will be of value since I was involved in the implementation of some parts of the Act.
It is easy to criticise the Act for everything. Some critics talk as though everything was perfect before 1969. Today they talk of a lack of resources as if there were no lack of resources before 1969. Of course there is a shortage of resources and adequate places. That is not new and has not been caused by the Act.
The critics forget that to a large extent the substantial and terrifying increase in crime, particularly amongst juveniles, is a result of causes outside the Act. I always thought that some of the main critics talked as though before the Act was implemented children never absconded from approved schools or repeated offences. It is wrong to blame everything on the Act.
There is a shortage of resources and secure places and I am glad that the


Report emphasised that. I share the view that it is necessary to do something quickly about removing children on remand from prison. One thing which has gone Wrong which is extraneous to the Act is that its implementation came so soon after the Seebohm Report and coincided with local government reorganisation, which put strains on the social services departments, making them unable to cope as they might otherwise have done.
I share the view of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East about the division between the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Security. I shall not suggest which Department should have been left in charge of the Act.
I am surprised that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East did not say that she was disturbed because the Department, except for a short time, has not been represented in the Chamber. That Department is responsible for the implementation of the Act and it is the members of that Department, not of the Home Office, who are being criticised in the Report. I was surprised that the hon. Lady, obviously out of chivalry towards her own Front Bench, made no comment about the absence of a Minister from that Department.

Mrs. Renée Short: My hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security wrote to me explaining the tragic reason why he had to be away from the House today, in Sheffield, and so could not be present to hear the opening speeches.

Mr. Carlisle: I accept what the hon. Lady says, and I withdraw any personal comment about the Minister of State. But it is perhaps an indication of the unwisdom of dividing responsibilities in such matters between Departments.
I believe that experience has shown that there are major flaws in the Act which require to be remedied. From the point of view of some of the lack of confidence, one of the major faults has been the unwillingness of social service departments to realise that when a court makes a care order it has done so, or should have done so, having ruled out the alternative of a supervision order.

and therefore on the basis that it believes that the child needs to be removed from its environment at that time. The social services department in whose care the child has been put should approach the case starting with that presumption.
Too often social services departments have chosen to send the child straight back home again, so that the child is often given the impression that the care order did not mean what it said. That shows also a breakdown in liaison between the social workers and the court, in that the court has often not had explained to it the reasons which made the social services department take that decision. The result is that if the child offends again and is brought back before the court, the court feels that it is being frustrated in its attempt to make a care order. The magistrates promptly blame the Act for the failure.
The fact that social services departments, particularly in the earlier stages, seem regrettably to have gone on the theory that, although the court has made a care order rather than a supervision order, the child should be returned immediately to his home environment is reflected in the fact that although there is a shortage of accommodation much of it has been under-used.
I do not see the basis on which heads of community homes have felt free throughout to refuse to admit certain children. I appreciate that in the early stages of the implementation of the Act, before the community homes came under the local authorities, the governors of those homes had the right to refuse to take children. But, as I understand it, once those homes came within the control of the local authority, the social services departments had the right and power to place children in them and not have them rejected by the head of a particular home.
This has all led to a collapse of confidence. Confidence must be restored if the major critics of the Act are to be satisfied. Therefore, an essential amendment is one on the lines proposed by the Committee—that there should be a power for courts in certain cases to make a residential, custodial or secure care order—call it what one will—so that they can see that the child is sent to a particular community home. I hope that


such a power would not be widely used. The courts would, of course, use it having, by remand, found out which home had a vacancy.
I endorse the views expressed by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner) on supervision orders. It is a pity that the supervision order provides no means for bringing a child back for breach of any condition of the order so as to allow the child to be dealt with in some other way for the original offence. I do not argue, as the Expenditure Committee argues, that the work should be put back to probation officers. The strains and stresses on the Probation Service are such, and its work on parole and other aspects is of such great importance, that it cannot also carry this burden. The supervision order should be regarded as being more akin to the probation order, and there should be power to impose conditions and to bring the child back before the court if those conditions are broken.
I agree entirely with the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East about the importance of the enforcement of the payment of fines.
We cannot deny or ignore the clear tie between truancy and juvenile crime. I am not sure whether the powers to deal with truancy are adequate and whether the training of the education welfare officer is adequate. I am impressed by the Committee's comments.
What, then, do I suggest, with humility, should be done? First, the Home Office has to recognise and appear to appreciate the genuine concern about this issue. The very fact that the Home Office has failed to answer the observations and recommendations contained in the Report, which it has had since last July, does not suggest the degree of urgency with which this problem should be tackled and does not augur well for the Government's attitude towards it.
I was horrified to learn today that since January this year the chairmen of the inner London juvenile courts have been attempting without success to obtain a meeting with the Minister in the Department of Health and Social Security to discuss the Children and Young Persons Act. There seems to be an alarming lack of urgency within the Government.
It is necessary to look again at the allocation of resources to see whether greater emphasis cannot be put on pushing forward with intermediate treatment, which is cheaper and more effective. I hope that the Home Office will closely study the recommendations on fostering. Fostering is more likely to be successful and is considerably cheaper than putting children into community homes.
It follows that the Home Office cannot at this stage, any more than we could in 1970, attempt to implement further parts of the Act. In the present climate we cannot raise the age for borstal training or remove the power to commit to a detention centre, although the interesting recommendation for a short-term detention order might be considered.
The law requires to be amended in the four ways I have suggested, only one of which is major. We require a new look at the Act, not because the philosophy is wrong but because its practical application requires reform if that philosophy is to be allowed to succeed.

9.30 p.m.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon): I intervene at this stage not in any way to close the debate, because the Government have made time available to make up for any shortfall caused by the earlier debate, but because I feel that it would be helpful if other speakers, having heard what I have had to say, make their comments in order to help us to mould our final views on the White Paper.
It is as much of concern to my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security as it is to me, and indeed to all hon. Members, that the White Paper is not available for debate today. So far as I am able to discover, nobody in the House, except possibly the Whips, wanted the debate to take place today. I achieved a fair degree of unanimity when I suggested that we should postpone the debate until after Easter so that the White Paper, which is in an advanced state, might be available before the debate took place. But I am afraid that, for reasons outside my control, that was not possible.
I take seriously the criticism made about the delay in producing the White Paper, but I hope that it will not be thought that the Department of Health


and Social Security or the Home Office is unduly lax in these matters. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) said, the lapses in this respect appear to be common throughout Government Departments. I have been looking at the periods of time it has taken Government Departments to respond to earlier Reports of Select Committees and, although my hon. Friend says that the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence have now improved their performance, I have discovered that there have been occasions when the time lag was greater than in this particular case. Nevertheless, I take the point and we shall try to do better if ever there is any other occasion when we have to deal with a problem as complicated as this one.
What appears to be clear from the debate is that it is agreed among hon. Members that there should be one sponsoring Department and that that Department should be the Department of Health and Social Security. My hon. Friend the Minister of State for that Department, who is sitting beside me, may take a different view, but I think that there is a real difficulty in this respect. The difficulty arises because, inevitably, Departments see issues in a slightly different way and there is bound to be some degree of conflict in the approach to a problem, particularly to one as difficult and sensitive as this problem.
The Departments I have mentioned are not the only ones involved. The Welsh and Scottish Offices are also to some extent involved, as is the Department of Education and Science, particularly on the difficult matter of truancy. There are a number of different aspects that have to be considered. That in itself makes it difficult to respond as quickly as apparently the Treasury responds.

Mr. Boyden: The Ministry of Defence is at least three Departments under one umbrella. Surely, if it can respond quickly, it should be no more difficult for the Home Office to do so.

Mr. Lyon: I was about to come to the essential thesis that underlies this important Report and the equally important subject with which it deals. It is a matter which has given cause for concern for a number of years, not only about what should be done about the

Children and Young Persons Act but about juvenile crime. It is also necessary to consider whether the Act was instrumental in increasing the amount of juvenile crime or in failing to deal with it properly. If so, we may ask whether there should be a different philosophical approach.
Everybody who has spoken in this debate, and almost anybody who has commented on this subject since publication of the Select Committee's Report, accepts the philosophy of the Act. All begin by saying that they accept that the proper way to deal with juvenile crime is in general to move away from custodial treatment, to move away from treatment by the courts and to move towards the alternatives to custodial treatment, particularly in relation to the kind of help that can be given by the social services departments.
Granted that that is the general view, what ought to be done to improve matters? If the Report had said that there are certain things that might be done to improve the relationship between the courts and the social services departments, it might have been easier to respond quickly. Although the Committee asserted that the philosophy of the Act was right, there are areas in which some of its recommendations undermined the basic approach to the Act. We have, therefore, had to consider whether indeed the Act needed overhaul and whether the philosophy was right. That is a much more fundamental question, and a much greater degree of consideration was required before we could deal with that question.
Basically, the Government have come to the same view as everybody else—that the philosophy of the Act is right, that we need to build on what we have, making better use of the resources we have, informing everyone concerned in the treatment of juvenile crime of the resources available and also the difficulties facing anybody who has to deal with a delinquent child, particularly with a severely delinquent child, and trying to get a better liaison between all the parties who have to deal with this very difficult matter.
Therefore, the most important recommendation for us in the Committee's Report is that which indicates that there ought to be some better institutional


arrangements for liaison at all levels. We shall take that as the crucial point on which we build.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: I apologise for missing the Minister's opening sentences. Before he leaves the general point of the Government's approach to the philosophy of the Act, will he accept that not everyone agrees with the philosophy of the Act and that some of us would like to feel that the protection of society ought to be built into it a little more than it is?

Mr. Lyon: I was about to deal with some of the mistaken criticism of the Act and its relevance to the increase in juvenile crime. The Committee indicated that juvenile crime, as a proportion of adult crime, has remained almost stationary since 1970. In 1970, 24 per cent, of all male offenders were under the age of 17. The figure for 1974 is 26 per cent. Therefore, the fact is that juvenile crime, as a proportion of total crime, is not as significant as is sometimes suggested—or, indeed, as was suggested from the Oppoition Front Bench.

Mr. Edward Gardner: One agrees—the figures are quite clear on this—that the overall increase in juvenile crime is not great. Our concern is with the growth of the hard core of persistent young offenders. Will the Minister say what can be done to deal with that very great problem?

Mr. Lyon: That is also an assertion which is made regularly—I have made it myself—but the difficulty is to identify on the evidence who are the alleged hardcore offenders and what is the comparison between 1974 and 1975 and the years before the implementation of the 1969 Act. It is extremely difficult from the statistics to make that kind of comparison, but I recognise that the hardcore offenders exist and that they are an acute difficulty, especially for social services departments.
The proportionate rise in juvenile crime is not peculiar to this country and, therefore, is not necessarily an indication of the inadequacy of the 1969 Act. When this matter was debated in the other place on a motion sponsored by Lord Lytton, he said that he had information from all over the world indicating that the pattern was fairly general and similar throughout

the world. Therefore, we are not talking about a problem which has been created by one piece of legislation, and here I underline all that the Committee said.
In addition, I do not think that it is fair to concentrate the whole of the criticism about the present arrangements upon whether or not magistrates ought to be able to make care orders which have some degree of secure provision in community homes. The hon. and learned Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner) said that the care order was the main order of the juvenile court. However, he will see from the statistics that it represents only a very small proportion of the disposals in the juvenile court. In 1974 there were 8,200 care orders out of a total of 127,000 juveniles who were dealt with by the juvenile courts. By far the biggest proportion of juvenile offenders are dealt with by fines or by supervision orders, and that will continue.
Again, it is simply not the case that the number of children who are held in some kind of custodial care at all remotely comparable with the old approved school has dropped to a significant extent. The population of community homes now is about 6,400, and that compares with about 6,800 in 1969. There is a slight drop, but only a slight drop.
The real question is whether we are using the 6,400 places for the right kind of children. There may be some difficulties in determining whether we are, according to how we define what the hon. and learned Member for South Fylde called the hard-core delinquent child. In trying to assess that, we have to improve the kind of approach that is available for the social services department and for the court in identifying who is mos in need of the places which are available.
But the House can take it—I think it is a matter which should be stressed for magistrates—that the places which were available in approved schools before 1970, when the Act was implemented, are now being used fully. Therefore, there is no question of simply saying that when a care order is made the social worker says "Go home, Johnnie" because he does not want to implement what the court has said. Even if we gave back to the court the power to say "You will go to a community home"—whether secure


or otherwise—it is a fact that the places are not available to increase very much the allocation to people who would go into this kind of custodial treatment.

Mr. Anthony Steen: Is the Minister aware that if the community homes were run by voluntary organisations they would be run at half the cost of the statutory homes? Will he say whether he would favour greater voluntary effort here or whether he feels that they must be run by the local authority?

Mr. Lyon: There are very considerable benefits in having homes run by local authorities but I am quite prepared to consider the point made by the hon. Gentleman, although, I am afraid, not on my feet in the middle of my speech. I will certainly have a look at it in due course.
The question therefore arises whether we ought to be providing more community homes than we have at present. In the table at paragraph 58 of the Report, the Select Committee estimates that we need about 6,900 extra places. Again, we come up against the real difficulty of resources which the hon. and learned Member for South Fylde himself acknowledged in speaking from the Front Bench. At a time when everyone is saying that we have to control the rise in public expenditure, it would be extremely difficult to tell local authorities that their spending ought to be disproportionately increased in this sector.
Before the 1975 Budget there were already plans for something like 2,000 new homes in the next financial year, but as a result of various cuts that have taken place the number that will actually be built is substantially less this year—something of the order of 800 to 850. It is, therefore, very difficult to say to local authorities "When you get a child put into care, you must make provision somewhere within your accommodation for that child to go into a custodial home". It may be that, given the best will in the world and with social workers as attuned to the defence of the public good as magistrates, there may not be all the places available to which they can send children. It is against that kind of background that I approach the recommendations of the Report.
First, I want to say emphatically that we welcome the Report, and the relevant phrase in the motion is not an idle one. We take the Report extremely seriously. I personally found it an extremely lucid bit of work which illuminated my understanding of many of the problems and which has carefully researched the various factors which concern us. That is not to say that we entirely accept all the recommendations, because inevitably in an area as difficult as this there can be a difference of view; and, for some of the reasons I have indicated, some of the recommendations seem to conflict with the central thesis of supporting the philosophy of the Act.
I have already dealt with what is in my view the most important recommendation, No. 36, about better liaison. I am convinced that most of the difficulties that have arisen have done so because of too little understanding by the various groups of the difficulties facing the other group involved in this area of juvenile delinquency. Magistrates frequently simply do not have an understanding of the kind of difficulties that social workers face in having to place a very difficult child, particularly with limited resources. They understand only too well that they cannot send to a detention centre every child they want to send because they know that the resources are not available. Yet they do not seem to appreciate that if they send a child into care the social worker may have similar difficulties. Equally, social workers are not always as careful in the defence of the public good as a magistrate would be. That dimension in their thinking is sometimes missing. I am sure that it would help both parties to be in closer liaison about the disposal of a particular case.

Mr. A. J. Beith: Is the hon. Gentleman in support of Recommendation 3 of the Committee that agreement on care orders should be made in court so that both parties are very clear at that time of the difficulties that both are facing?

Mr. Lyon: I was coming particularly to Recommendations 3 and 4. I shall do so immediately in view of the hon. Gentleman's intervention, although it is a little out of the line of my argument.
Those two recommendations are the most difficult of the Select Committee's


recommendations because to some extent they undermine the approach of the Act. The Committee says that the court will have a decisive say not only in the appropriate disposal but in what happens when a child goes into care. The Act says that the matter is for the court and the police up to the point of conviction or disposal.
If the court chooses to order a disposal which does not require a child to go into care, that is also a matter for the court. Fines, detention orders and so on are matters for the court. But care is a matter for the local authority. I do not think that we can blur those lines.
We either accept that situation or we do not. If we do not accept it, we go back on the total philosophy of the Act. If we accept it, it is not appropriate for the magistrate to say in a mandatory way what should be done with the child after he goes into care. We are anxious to meet not only the wishes of the Committee, but the widespread concern among magistrates on the point.
We have been trying to find ways of resolving this problem which will be satisfactory to all. That is the root cause of the delay. I cannot tell the House what is in the White Paper, because it has not yet received final approval by the Cabinet. However, I hope to express the difficulties of the various alternatives.
The difficulty about the Committee's suggestion is that it does not say what would happen if there were a disagreement. If a magistrate said "This child should go to a secure community home" and the social worker said "No, he should not", what happens then? If the social worker decides that it is not appropriate for some reason to accept the magistrate's decision, the Committee does not say who shall decide in these circumstances.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not want to interrupt the Minister, but it is courtesy to address the Chair. The hon. Gentleman has had his back to me for the greater part of his speech.

Mr. Lyon: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. I shall remedy that situation by turning my back to the House. I accept your rebuke and will seek to do better in future.
I was about to say that within the recommendation is a situation which is

pregnant with conflict. We do not want that. On the other hand, there would be great benefit in establishing the kind of closer liaison which we have in mind if there were some way in which the bench were involved in what should be done with the child.
However, there is the other point, which I stress even more than the potentiality of conflict, about the assessment procedure which is vital to the whole matter. The assessment procedure comes after, not before, the decision to send the child into care. Certain reports are available to the court, but the assessment procedure must be gone into later. Therefore, it is not possible to make the final disposal at the court hearing. In principle, for the reasons which I have indicated, that is not right.
We could do one of two things. We could allow the court to ask the social services department to report back on any particular case with which it found difficulty. If there were any reason why the child was sent home, the social services department could get in touch with the court, explain the reasons, and possibly listen to representations from the bench about the matter.

Mr. Peter Rees: The Minister has left me, and perhaps the House, a little unclear as to what sort of residual judicial function is to be left to the courts in this kind of situation. Are they merely to be an adjunct to the welfare services in his view?

Mr. Lyon: The position at the moment, if the hon. and learned Gentleman did not know, is that once the court has said that the child goes into care, that is the end of the matter. What is being suggested is that there ought to be some improvement upon that so that the court has a proper knowledge of what happens to the child and possibly can interpose in some way in the final disposal of the child. All I am suggesting are ways in which that can come about; this is one way.
The other way, about which I would welcome views, is one on which the Government have no concluded opinion. It is that we could give the courts power to make a recommendation that the child should be kept in a community home or that the child be kept in a secure community home, which is Recommendation


4. It would not be mandatory, so it would not infringe the responsibility of the social services department to make the final decision but it would, because it came from the court in that kind of way, have some influence upon the ultimate disposal.
If the recommendation cannot be acceded to for any reason, the social services department can communicate with the court and explain the reasons. This might well allay any of the frustration and anxiety felt by the court in that kind of situation.
One is bound to recognise that a recommendation made in open court to which the child may ultimately come back for some other offence may also be pregnant with difficulty. Therefore, there is a real difficulty about the best balance to strike in that situation. I would welcome the views of those who are to speak in the debate about how they feel about that matter before we take any concluded view.
In relation to Recommendation 8, although we intend to phase out the use of the Probation Service in children cases ultimately, it is not possible to do so at the moment. We find grave difficulty, for the reasons I have indicated in relation to Recommendation 3 and 4, in allowing the court the right to decide there and then whether it should be a probation officer or a social worker who deals with a particular child. As the hon. and learned Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) said—with his knowledge of the difficulties the opinion comes with great weight—there is a considerable burden upon the Probation Service at the moment in carrying out its existing duties.
One has to be careful about burdening probation officers with duties now undertaken by social workers. If the decision about the proper allocation of duties were to be left to the choice of a particular court on a particular day, it would make the whole administration of the social services departments and the Probation Service considerably more difficult. For that reason we are not much attracted to Recommendation 8.
The alternative punishments which might provide a means of non-custodial

treatment are matters we are looking at very seriously but we wonder whether Recommendation 9 has been carefully thought out. There has been an enormous demand on magistrates' courts for a greater use of detention centres. The result is that, even though we have provided through the Home Office a greater number of detention centres, they are al) filled and we could well fill a great many more. If in addition we are to provide a punishment for the court of a short-stay detention, that will add to the burden on existing resources.

Mr Frank Hooley: The intention of the Committee—certainly my intention—is not that there should be short-stay detention sentences on top of the existing three months' and six months' sentences, but that they should replace the latter, which would relieve the burden, not intensify it.

Mr. Lyon: That may be the Committee's intention, but whether it would be the intention of magistrates' courts is a matter of considerable doubt. At the moment, they take the view that in certain cases the child has to have a period of detention, which they know is relatively long by comparison with the recommendation. Nevertheless, they send the child to that kind of period of detention. The kind of children who would be considered for the short-stay detention seem to me to fall more into the category of those who are dealt with now in some other way—by means of a fine or a supervision order—and that is much more likely to be the effect.
There is also an issue of principle involved—whether any useful purpose can be served by a detention order of as little as a few days. At the moment, the detention order is for three months, with the possible remission of half, bringing it down to about six weeks. Those responsible for detention centres advise that in that period one can just about do something meaningful, whereas, if it were as little as two or three days, they do not consider that it would be of any assistance to the child and might disrupt the régime for those in the longer stay. So one is not much attracted to that recommendation.

Mrs Renée Short: Mrs Renée Short rose—

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: I think that my hon. Friend is aware that a considerable body of opinion favours the abolition of juvenile detention centres. Does he not accept that the reconviction rates of those sent to detention centres is higher than the rates of those sent to borstals?

Mr. Lyon: Perhaps I should give way now to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) so that I can deal with both questions.

Mrs. Short: I am obliged. Would my hon. Friend not dismiss this recommendation out of hand but consider the experience that we had in Hamburg? We were told clearly that the view here is that three weeks in a detention centre is the maximum during which a young person can be expected to derive benefit from the régime and that three or six months is far too long, that during that period young persons can adapt to the régime, however tough it is.

Mr. Lyon: As I have said, my mind is not closed to any suggestion from any part of the House. Since we do not have the White Paper, I thought that I should at any rate indicate the present state of my thinking. I emphasise that there is no final Government decision. We would therefore take into consideration what my hon. Friend says in framing our response to that recommendation.
I can perhaps be a little more forthcoming about Recommendation 6, about fines. We recognise that there is a real difficulty here. We do not accept the evidence of the Justices' Clerks' Society to the Select Committee, that, as a result of disenchantment about fine enforcement, courts were not using fines as much as they used to do. All the evidence is that they are. There is little evidence that the incidence of non-payment is increasing substantially.
It is difficult to get evidence, but it is also difficult to place one's hand on one's heart and assert as strongly as some magistrates do that this is a widespread problem. Nevertheless, we accept that, in terms of the deterrent effect of fines, there is something to be said for having a follow-up if a fine is not paid and for being able to tell the child that that might occur. It would be nonsense to have a supervision order for non-payment of a

fine and a fine for breach of a supervision order. That would be circulatory.
We therefore accept the Committee's view that an attendance centre might be the appropriate disposal for non-payment of a fine, if attendance centres were available freely to every court in the land. I am afraid that that is not the position. By and large, attendance centres depend on the efforts particularly of the police, who mainly man those which are available. It is difficult for us to expand them at any great rate until more people are willing to help. We are hoping to expand as much as possible, but resources are limited and we need the kind of help which is not always available.
It is not possible to give a fine-enforcement power freely to every juvenile court in the country. We have to look at possible alternatives. I would not have thought the attendance centre was an alternative. There is no settled conclusion yet, but the alternative seems to be that we should put the burden more on to the parent. There should be a way in which the parent should be made liable if a fine imposed is not paid in the due period. We are investigating that before coming to a conclusion.
Finally, we bear in mind the criticism of the Committee about supervision orders and whether it is possible now to move in the direction of making this order something like a probation order. There are difficulties here which we have not entirely resolved. We are approaching it with a great deal of sympathy.
There are many more recommendations in the Report which are extremely useful and helpful. The Committee will find our White Paper helpful, even though we do not entirely accept all the recommendations. I have tried to deal with the major areas of difficulty to enable contributions to be made before the White Paper is issued.

Mr. Carlisle: Since the Minister appears to pour a douche of cold water on every single one of the main recommendations, on what basis does he say the Government welcome the Report? Are they seriously considering extending the use of attendance centres for non-payment of fines? If so, why when the Cheshire police tried to open two attendance centres were they turned down by the Home Office?

Mr. Lyon: I shall have to investigate that; I cannot answer it off the cuff. We are certainly interested in extending attendance centres and we are doing our best to do so.
As for pouring cold water on the recommendations, it is for the House to judge. I have tried to explain the areas of most difficulty—where there are areas of common agreement and where there are difficulties. I do not think the Committee expected all its recommendations to be accepted, but there are some we can accept without qualification.
Of course we recognise that there is widespread doubt about the best way to deal with juvenile crime today, but we do not accept that the cause of that difficulty is the Act. There is a much greater need for liaison between those administering this area of the criminal law. We

believe there is still room for improvement in the allocation of resources in order to back up the central philosophy of the Act. We shall press on with it as hard and as fast as resources allow, but the House will know the difficulty of getting resources at this time.
As far as possible, we shall do all we can to make available to the courts and social services departments the resources to allow them to deal with juvenile crime so far as it is possible to deal with this form of human behaviour by way of resources. I suspect strongly that, in the final analysis, it is not possible so to dc and that the eventual solution will not be found until there is a considerable change in the attitude of parents towards their children and in the resources society gives to building up family life in order to have a very different attitude among young people to the commission of crime.

10.11 p.m.

Mr. Roger Sims: As a member of the Sub-Committee, I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) on the way she chaired this Committee of varied personalities week after week. Not only did the hon. Lady chair the Committee successfully; she also produced a unanimous Report. It was a notable achievement. Both she and the Report are, as the French say, formidable. May I also add our appreciation to the Clerk of the Committee, who did a great deal of work and distilled the many views into a readable form.
I also wish to add a word to the protests about the manner in which the debate has been organised. It is particularly unfortunate that, when the Expenditure Committee specifies that it wants a full day to debate this important Report, we are given a half-day and half the night on a particularly inconvenient day and at a time when a number of our members who would like to have taken part are unable to do so.
I would also like to endorse the comments about the lack of observations from either of the Government Departments concerned. We appreciate the Minister's useful contribution, but it is extremely unfortunate that the Report should have been with the Departments for well over six months without any observations being presented. Earlier the Lord President of the Council said that the House could put pressure on the Executive for action. Pressure has been exerted in all sorts of ways in this case, but without much effect.
I appreciate that there is a lot of meat in the Report, which includes 40 recommendations, but I would have thought that either or both of the Departments could have presented their views by now. After all, the criticisms and comments in the Report are not new. They have been made for many years and must have been known to the Departments.
In 1970–71, I was chairman of my local juvenile court and had the task of implementing the Children and Young Persons Act. Within a year or two, some of the problems were self-evident and were being voiced by magistrates, probation officers and social workers.
In December 1974, not long after I entered the House, I won a Ballot for Private Members' motions and chose to debate juvenile crime and the working of the Act. The Minister of State said in that debate:
the Act and its effects are under review in the Department. We are co-operating with the Secretary of State for Social Services in implementing its results."— [Official Report, 9th December 1974; Vol. 883, c. 103.]
Since then, apparently nothing has happened. The Government are not only treating the House with disrespect; they are also showing an astonishing lack of consideration for the very children and young people who are the subject of the Act.
Every day scores of juveniles are passing through the courts and decisions are being taken about them. The way in which they are dealt with may have a crucial influence on their whole lives. Every day children are being affected by the shortcomings and, in one or two respects, the failings of the Act. I am not saying that it is a bad Act, but it has some faults, some of which are serious. They are faults that must be put right, and action must be taken. Not least is the first recommendation, to which reference has been made—namely, that the putting of children into prison must cease forthwith. The word "forthwith" was in the first recommendation when the Report was issued in September 1975, some six months ago, yet children are still being put into prison.
Last year about 4,000 children were in some sort of prison establishment. I accept that they were not all prisons as such. I do not wish to exaggerate the problem. It is only a relatively small proportion of the children who get into trouble who go to prison, and they are in prison for only a relatively short time. In answer to the Question which I tabled a week or two ago and to which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner) referred, I was told that on 29th February there were 24 persons under the age of 17 in Her Majesty's prisons. In the year 1976, that is 24 too many.
The procedure by which young persons, get into prison is fairly straightforward. A child comes before the court having committed an offence such as shoplifting


or housebreaking. Before the court can proceed, it must institute social inquiry reports. That may necessitate adjourning the case for two or three weeks.
In the majority of cases it is practicable for the child to return home while the inquiries are being made. If circumstances do not allow that course to be taken, the child goes into a community home. There are cases where the child is an absolute hooligan. He may try to abscond from or break up wherever he is put. He may be extremely seriously disturbed. Perhaps the incident that has brought him to court is the climax of many other events, but the circumstances may well be such that the child cannot be contained in a normal community home. Thus it is that the social worker requests that a certificate of unruliness be given.
Some criticism is made of magistrates because of the way in which they issue unruliness certificates, but they cannot issue them off their own bat. They can do so only on the application of a social worker. A social worker will make application only if he or she feels that it is impossible to cope with the child within the normal facilities that are available. Thus it is that the social worker, armed with a certificate of unruliness, is able to put the child into secure accommodation if such accommodation exists locally.
Unfortunately, secure accommodation does not always exist locally. When it is not available, we get the situation that has been referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Petersfield (Mr. Mates), when a child is put into prison. The truth is that there is insufficient accommodation to cope with that sort of case.
It is to the credit of the Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security that almost immediately the Report was issued he added a clause to what is now the Children Act to enable him to make grants of up £2 million to local authorities for the provision of more secure accommodation. That was a very good start, but it is not sufficient. It is vital that the money should be turned into actual accommodation.
I had hoped that we might hear a little more from the Minister about what

is happening on that front. When the Act came into force in 1971 there were 150 secure places throughout the country. The figure crept up and in 1974 it was 179. According to an answer that I received yesterday from the Department of Health and Social Security, on 1st April 1975 there were 193 secure places. Unfortunately, the Department cannot tell me how many places were available on 1st April 1976.
If the places are increasing by that slow rate, I suspect that the total now is only about 200. Whatever argument there may be about the number of secure places that we want, it is clear that at present we do not have enough. The delay is intolerable. It cannot be beyond the wit of man to provide adequate secure places in each region, if necessary simply by making certain rooms or wings in a number of community homes more secure than they are already. I hope that from one Department or the other we shall have a date specified after which no child shall be put in prison.
However, that is only one of 40 recommendations. If I were to devote only one minute to the remaining 39, 1 suspect that I should try both your patience, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House. Perhaps I may refer, however, to a few of the other recommendations.
There is common criticism of care orders and the limited powers of the court. What so often happens is that a child commits an offence and comes before the court, and the court makes a care order. The social services say that the child should remain at home—perhaps because they so choose, perhaps because there are inadequate facilities, or even because if the child is put into a community home it then absconds. For some reason, the child finishes up back at home. The child then goes out, commits another offence and comes before the court again. What can the court do? It can make a care order.
That is an aspect of the Act that has received considerable criticism, not least from a very distinguished justice of the peace—and my constituent—the Lord Mayor of London. He has commented that last year in the metropolis 106 boys were accused of 3,735 offences, an average of 35 each, and between them they


had 1,057 court appearances. Every one of those boys was at the time subject to a care order made by a court.
Hence we have Recommendation No. 4, to which the Minister has referred, which suggests a secure care order. I rather share the view of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Fylde that, while the Committee originally suggested that such an order would be made on, as it were, the second appearance of a child already in care, it would be right that we should give the court the added power to make such an order in the first instance.
I quite accept that the thinking behind the Act is to transfer responsibility from the court to the social services—the Minister mentioned that—and that once the court has made the decision the responsibility as to the type of treatment is then with the social worker. But, after all, while it is right that the court should put the welfare of the child first, it has to take into account other considerations also, not least the interests of society as a whole. It would not be wrong or necessarily against the philosophy of the Act to give the court an added power, an alternative power to the ordinary care order, whereby it could lay down certain types of conditions and specify where a child should go.
Similarly, it is because of criticism of the sort I have already indicated that I support Recommendation No. 3, which suggests that we should try to seek some sort of agreement between the bench and the social services. The Minister referred to this matter, and I was interested in his suggestion that perhaps the court might be able to make some sort of recommendation.
When the Act first came into effect, the view that we formed in my own court was that, if it was appropriate for a child to go back and live in its own home, we would normally make a supervision order—assuming that the other penalties such as a fine or an attendance centre order were not appropriate. Normally, if we thought that the child should be accommodated away from home, we would make a care order. That seems to have been the thinking behind the Act. That was our interpretation. We made a point of liaising. In going through my notes in preparation for the debate, I came across a copy of a letter I wrote at the time to

the local director of social services saying that that would be our thinking, which we hoped that the social services would reflect. They completely agreed.
It must be possible, if it is not practicable to give the court the additional power that I would prefer, to have some sort of understanding between magistrates and social workers. It is unfortunate that the degree of liaison appears to vary in different parts of the country. I have even heard of cases in which the social worker has refused to meet the magistrates, or vice versa.
These care orders are for the more serious cases. In other circumstances a supervision order might be more appropriate. I was particularly interested to hear that the Minister of State is sympathetic to the Committee's suggestion that such orders might be brought more into line with the old type of probation order. The weakness of the supervision order is that there are no sanctions to ensure that it works. The social worker can say to his charge that he wants him to go and see him every Wednesday and that he is determined that his charge should keep away from a particular cafe because the people there will do him no good. That child can then fail to turn up and behave contrary to the instructions which the social worker has given him.
There is nothing that a social worker can then do except take the child back to court. The court will then tell the child that he is a naughty boy and confirm the supervision order, or a care order will be made. It would be better to establish some sort of contractual relationship similar to that of a probation order. That would not apply in every case, because it might be better to have some sort of loose supervision. That is a particularly useful recommendation by the Committee.
I was pleased to hear the Minister's comments on fines, because that is an unsatisfactory aspect of the working of the Act. It is not practical for a court to enforce the payment of fines on children. In the majority of cases fines are paid, but one can fine Johnny £5 or £10 for an offence and in nine cases out of 10 it will be agreed that it should be paid at 50p a week. The child will walk out of court knowing damned well that if he does not pay there is nothing


the court can do about it. He knows that and the court knows that. It brings the law into disrepute.
I was delighted that the Minister was in favour in principle of Recommendation 10, which suggests an extension of attendance centres. They play a useful part and are economical. They are effective because 75 per cent, of children who go to attendance centres do not get into trouble again. They deprive a child of liberty on Saturday afternoons but they do not upset schooling or work, and it is a form of treatment within the community.
The benefits of treatment within the community are a theme throughout our Report. Reference is made to the cost of keeping a child in a community home. It costs about £3,500 a year, and in some cases substantially more. The cost in a home which members of the Committee visited was twice that figure. It is an enormous cost. Therefore, the more children we can keep out of community homes, the better. Some youngsters must be cared for in residential accommodation, but if they can be treated at home that is better because they can then remain in the community.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: Since my hon. Friend has visited community homes, can he tell the House why it costs up to £8,500 a year? Why should it cost more than it does to stay at the Savoy or go to Eton? There must be a reason. Can my hon. Friend say what it is?

Mr. Sims: I can show my hon. Friend the figures. One has to take into account the basic capital cost and the high cost of staffing as well as ordinary costs. The higher costs occur where there is a high ratio of staff to children, and particularly in homes with high-level and expensive security. The figures are very high. While there may well be room in this as in other aspects of local and national administration for knocking a few pounds off here and there, I do not think that there is room for many economies. We must accept that that sort of residential accommodation is very expensive.
That was one of the reasons why the Committee was particularly encouraged to read of the success of intermediate treatment in certain areas and suggested that

it should be expanded as widely as possible. It is a valuable adjunct to the supervision order, where intermediate treatment is available. It is not a new idea. For years probation officers have been running schemes such as rock-climbing, go-karting, handicrafts, sailing and so on, to develop the interests of lads in something that will continue after they finish their period of supervision, to encourage youngsters to direct their energies into more useful channels. A number of schemes have been developed which involve local industry and local organisations.
A great deal of good work is being done not far from here, in Southwark. There the cost of intermediate treatment works out at about £80 per head per year. It clearly will not be 100 per cent, successful, but if only a proportion of those children are diverted from the criminal path on which they had started it will be extraordinarily good value for money. There is scope for the development of such schemes throughout the country. I hope that they will be encouraged by the Department of Health and Social Security and the Home Office.
Some disturbed and delinquent children cannot stay at home, for various reasons, and they must live in community homes. I have several community homes in my constituency, as I am sure other hon. Members have. The staff do a wonderful job. But the homes are not, and cannot be, the same as a family home. The next best thing to the real family home is a foster home. Children from broken homes and orphans have been fostered for many years, but it has been less common to foster disturbed and delinquent children. The hon. Lady the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East mentioned the schemes we saw operating on the Continent. There have been a number of schemes going on quietly in this country. There has been some publicity in the past week or two about the scheme in Kent, which led my local director of social services to tell me that he had been doing the same in my borough for some years, but without so much publicity.
It was interesting to see the extent to which the schemes were being developed on the Continent and how successful they were. The foster-parents are given not only the cost of looking after the child


but a substantial remuneration in acknowledgment of the job they do. One of the countries we visited had a sliding scale of salary. The more difficult and disturbed the child, the higher the salary. The Department of Health and Social Security should encourage that. It could do nothing but good.
Incidentally, I note that the countries where fostering appears to have been developed most, and most successfully, are those where the way of life is often considered to be less inhibited, and where perhaps it is easier for people to take into their homes the difficult, disturbed child, the child who creates mess everywhere, the child on drugs and so on. Whether we in this country are becoming more able to cope with those problems, and whether in wider terms that is a good thing, is perhaps a matter for discussion on another occasion.
I apologise for speaking at some length. There are still one or two points, arising from our discussions in Committee, which are worthy of note. One concerns the rôle of the regional planning committees. It is obviously important that in every region the widest possible facilities should be made available. That was the purpose of setting up the regional planning committees. The trouble is that they have no powers. They can tell a local authority "It will be helpful in this region if you will have such and such an establishment" or say to another "Please adapt your establishment to take girls." If, however, the local authority refuses, there is nothing that the regional planning committee can do about it. There is a recommendation on these general lines which should be considered.
I was pleased that the Minister of State referred to the need for liaison. It is so important and simple. I mentioned earlier that some of us met together locally. I started by suggesting that the social workers might come along and meet the magistrates. There were a few raised eyebrows, but they came along and each side found that the other side was human. Since then, my successor has progressed to the point at which there have been several successful conferences to discuss the general problems of juvenile crime, with magistrates, probation officers, social workers, teachers

and police all represented. There is no reason why such meetings should not be more widely extended. It is far better for this liaison to be informal than for the Government to lay down that there should be so many from each profession represented.
With regard to detention centres, before 1969 there was a tendency for juvenile courts to remand a lad in custody for a week simply to give him a dose of the medicine. That was wrong and illegal, but it had some effect in certain cases for the lad to be away from home for a few days. In this context the suggestion for a short stay in a detention centre has much to commend it.
We must examine the need for more trained social workers. It is a pity that in residential homes only 13 per cent, of the social workers are trained. Meanwhile, we should consider whether we are using the skills and experience of probation officers to the best advantage. We must clarify the law of truancy. There is a great deal of misunderstanding of the circumstances in which truants can be brought before the courts, and experience shows that a large proportion of juvenile delinquents are truants.
Having been rather critical, I emphasise that I favour the philosophy behind the Act, especially that which suggests that there is little difference between the delinquent child and the disturbed child. They both need treatment rather than punishment. But the Act fails to distinguish between the disturbed and delinquent child who needs and will respond to treatment and the minority of young criminals. These young criminals merit firm handling and must be so dealt with in their own interests and in the interests of society as a whole.
The fault of the Act is that it was implemented with inadequate measures available to the courts and inadequate resources available to local authorities. The inadequacies of the courts can be remedied in part by legislation and in part by administrative action. Resources mean finance. I accept that spending is strictly limited at present, but we must get our priorities right. I forbear to criticise certain directions in which the Government are spending public money, but I suggest that modest expenditure now in dealing with young delinquents


can prevent their becoming criminals later at far greater expense to society.
We are talking of young people who in the main, if properly handled, can become normal members of the community leading enjoyable and useful lives. If we fail to treat them, or treat them wrongly, the consequences in terms of wasted talents and human misery for them, their families and those against whom they offend are incalculable. The Act must be made to work. No effort to ensure that it does is too great. The responsibility to ensure that it works properly lies with Parliament, and it is a responsibility we dare not ignore.

10.40 p.m.

Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk: I wish to add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) and the members of her Committee for having put in a tremendous amount of work and time to produce a very informative, illuminating and well-presented Report.
I also wish to express disappointment that the Government have not been able to respond to the Report, even though they have had as long as nine months in which to do so. I was also disappointed that my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Office was not able to go further than he did, particularly in dealing with the predicament of children from 14 to 16 years of age who are in Prison Service establishments. He said on previous occasions that the Government intended to begin the phasing out of remands for juveniles to such establishments and to local prisons. Despite repeated promises, however, we have not yet moved to a situation where the phasing out of remands, even for 14-year-old girls, looks like being even a remote possibility in the near future.
The Children and Young Persons Act has attracted a great deal of criticism and has aroused much controversy, yet it has not had a fair chance to operate. It was passed only in 1969 and implemented by the previous Government in 1971, but it has always suffered from a lack of resources and during its period of operation we have seen not only the reorganisation of local authority social service departments initiated by Seebohm

but also the major upheaval of local government reorganisation.
We must remember that the Act has not been in force very long. Many of its provisions were not implemented by the previous Government, and it cannot be said to have had a fair chance of succeeding. Yet surprisingly we find, particularly outside the House but also within this Chamber, that the Act is blamed for the rising rate of juvenile crime—a rise which, as my hon. Friend the Minister of State said, is largely illusory. However much the Police Federation may complain to the contrary, the increase in juvenile crime has been relatively insignificant. There has been an unparalleled increase in crime among adults generally.
There are many other reasons why juvenile crime seems to be increasing. Many of the crimes are ineptly committed and the offenders are often easily caught. Furthermore, there has always been a greater degree of success in detection in relation to crimes by juveniles. Because of propaganda and various campaigns conducted from many quarters, particularly outside the House, against juveniles in general, it is probably fashionable, to a greater degree than perhaps has been the case in the past, to blame juveniles for having contributed to the incidence of crime.
In any event, many crimes committed by juveniles are relatively trivial. Despite the hysteria and controversy aroused on this subject in many quarters. I think that we as a nation must try to disabuse ourselves of the view that our children are any more delinquent or wicked than were their predecessors. We do a disservice to ourselves and to the community if we seek to place too great an emphasis—and certainly that emphasis has been underlined by the Police Federation—on the alleged incidence of the rise in juvenile crime. We must not seek to create an alarmist and hysterical atmosphere.
Whatever increase in this respect has taken place must not lead us to an unwarranted or misguided attack on the Act. It was an attempt to deal with children in trouble. It was not intended, nor was it able, to eradicate the causes of crime. We cannot by means of legislation eradicate the causes of crime. We


have to isolate, identify and root out those causes by other means—and that was not the function, nor can it be, of the Children and Young Persons Act. There are many criticisms which should be rightly directed towards the Act. It has many shortcomings. But what Act of Parliament is not criticised? What Act of Parliament does not have shortcomings?
I do not believe that because the Act as shortcomings—they are there and there are many of them—this in any sense necessarily undermines the objectives that were entertained when the Act was passed or the philosophy that underlies its whole concept in practice. Indeed, I am very pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Minister of State reaffirm the Government's commitment, and the commitment of many other hon. Members on both sides of the House, to the concept and the underlying philosophy behind the Children and Young Persons Act.
However, it is necessary to accept that many of the juveniles that we are talking about tonight are difficult, delinquent children and that they do not all come from disturbed homes and do not all have psychiatric problems. Many of them are embryonic criminals—the professional criminals of the future. We have to recognise that fact and deal with them in the recognition of that fact. But it is interesting that, when we talk of the incidence of juvenile crime and look at he figures and types of children involved crime of one kind and another, almost invariably they come from the deprived areas of the country, and very largely from the inner areas of the cities.
Kirkby, in my constituency, is a relatively small town, a new town, and it has one of the highest rates of juvenile crime in the country. It has a higher rate than cities like Liverpool, Manchester, or Birmingham. It is an area with a population of 60,000. Yet we also find that it happens to be very socially deprived, with the highest rate of male unemployment not only in the United Kingdom but in the whole of Western Europe. It has tremendously inadequate housing and social deprivation of all kinds. It has the largest number of single-parent families and the largest number of unmarried mothers. Whatever factor of social deprivation we can think of, it is

to be found in Kirkby—and writ large in Kirkby. We also find there a great deal of juvenile vandalism and crime. From this microcosm, this almost miniature city in my constituency, we can extrapolate throughout the country.
There is a clear connection, even if it is not actually provable as a causal connection, between social deprivation, unstable home background, and juvenile crime and a tendency towards or propensity to it. We ought to be dealing with that rather than attempting to deal with the symptoms. We are talking in a very large way here about dealing with children who have already got into trouble rather than about how to prevent them geting into trouble in the first place. A large part of the Act is devoted to trying to divert them from a future life of criminality. It is not really an attempt to eradicate the causes of crime.
There are now something like 2,500 unemployed school leavers on Merseyside—250 in the very small town of Kirkby. Would not any hon. Member feel a great sense of grievance and resentment if, having gone through the education system and seen what was available to the normal, ordinary, decent people in society—all of this having been pictured regularly on television, along with the adventures and glories of the Martini society—he found on leaving school that there was not even a dead-end job available but only the dole queue? That inevitably must arouse a great deal of resentment and bitterness against society, which would appear to such a person as uncaring about either him or his future or his environment. Although I do not in any sense wish to appear to defend it or to argue that it is acceptable, it is not surprising, given those circumstances, that many of these youngsters and juveniles turn against that society which they feel has done nothing but humiliate and degrade them.
We have also had many criticisms of the Act that there is not sufficient power to deal with what I accept are juveniles who may be delinquent, who may be the future criminals and who need to be dealt with by other than the caring means which underlie the Act. Yet those powers exist already. The powers in the Act, for example, now enable the courts to enforce a supervision order, to have


a detention centre order and also to send juveniles of 15 years and above, on a recommendation, to the Crown court for borstal training. They also seem to exercise the power—as it happens, no one has said that it should be continued—to remand many hundreds of children a year to local prisons. The powers exist to deal with those delinquents whom we accept to be adult in their physique, in their attitudes and perhaps in their behaviour, and I cannot see any further powers which could be added to the Act which would in any way protect society, which I take to be one of the most important criteria, or, what is equally important, ensure that these juveniles do not recommit the same offences or other offences in the future.
Yet all our experience of all custodial measures shows that they have a negligible effect upon reconviction rates and in no sense rehabilitate those whom they are incarcerating. If we look, for example, as I tried to get my hon. Friend the Minister to look earlier, at junior detention centres—this short dash that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East seems to want of a dose of semi-imprisonment in a detention centre to bring home to the juvenile delinquent the error of his ways and to put him on a new path—we see that clearly they have not achieved that in practice. There is a reconviction rate from juveniles sent to detention centres which exceeds that of those who undergo borstal training.
No one here accepts that it is appropriate or tolerable for children between the ages of 14 and 16 to be remanded in any circumstances to local prisons. I do not wish to go through all the many comments and figures which have been produced here tonight. Suffice it to say that a very large proportion of children who end up on unruly certificates in the remand parts of local prisons are subsequently found not guilty or are given non-custodial sentences, yet they have already, technically innocent, served prison sentences.
It is not true, as the Minister of State has said on previous occasions, that girls at Holloway, for example, are segregated from adult prisoners. Indeed, it was his colleague the Under-Secretary of State

for the Home Department who told me in a letter in 1974 that it was a good thing that they were not segregated because, believe it or not, the older women commonly exerted a restraining influence on the girls. That seems to be an extraordinary statement for a Home Office Minister to make and an extraordinary reason for allowing girls between the ages of 14 and 16 to associate with older and more hardened criminal adults.
One of the objects of the Act is to ensure not only that juveniles and children are dealt with in a caring situation rather than in a punitive sense but also to provide flexibility. It has that flexibility, subject to the resources being made available, and it is a flexibility which I believe should be retained, as should the emphasis of the Act upon non-custodial treatments. As many hon. Members have pointed out, non-custodial measures are certainly less expensive than custodial measures. In any event, their success has not been properly tried or put to the test so that we can conclusively say one way or the other, but they are no less successful than the custodial measures in changing conviction rates or rehabilitating offenders.
I therefore suggest that we should be far more positive, constructive and adventurous in attempting to widen the scope and comprehensiveness of the non-custodial measures available for dealing with offenders of all ages, to ensure that offenders play a fuller part in the community and do not remain isolated and alienated individuals who are apart from society.
We need to look more fully and with a greater degree of commitment than in the past at better community schemes. For example, my hon. Friend mentioned fostering arrangements in Sweden. As was pointed out, that also happens in this country. In Kent, probation officers, school teachers, police officers and other pillars of the establishment are recruited and paid. This is something which could be broadened throughout the country as a whole as a means of providing stable homes for those who have not had the benefit and privilege of a stable home background and environment. This is working in a pilot scheme in Kent and it is worth trying and expanding into other areas.
It is worth going further and introducing community service schemes for juveniles where they can repay the community for damage and distress they may have caused individuals and the community as a whole. This would be a far more constructive approach for individual children or the juvenile in trouble and certainly would be far less expensive than other measures currently employed or available.
Most of the other non-custodial methods have been mentioned a great deal already in the debate and have been dealt with thoroughly. I would give my support and hope that the Government will find themselves able in the White Paper to offer greater provision of more day care facilities, a better and more intensive education programme and more intermediate treatment and preventive measures than have been used in the past.
It is most important—the Minister of State mentioned this—that there should be better liaison between juvenile bureaux and local authority social services departments. We need to regularise the juvenile liaison scheme which has grown up haphazardly in the country. It is good in intent but in some cases it works in a way which is not to be commended or approved.
Perhaps we can start by looking in a constructive manner at the operation of the juvenile liaison scheme, to attempt to regularise its methods and methodology, throughout the country and by ensuring that the police are properly trained—as they are not now—to deal with juveniles, to overcome the confusion of the role of the police as police and as confidants and fatherly figures towards the juvenile in trouble, and attempt to get them and local authorities more thoroughly involved in diversion than has been the practice in the past.
The most important thing to emphasise is that implementation of the Act is right. Many of the criticisms are directed towards its shortcomings, but they can be overcome. It is important to ensure that the shift of emphasis to care and to noncustodial measures is continued and that it is not thwarted, prevented or circumvented by society's thirst for punishment away from constructive, humane and what I believe to be civilised measures adopted

in the past which the Report supports and which the Minister's acceptance of the major part of it suggests he will be following in the future.

11.0 p.m.

Mr. Ivan Lawrence: There is a great deal to be said about this excellent Report, with which I have had some small connection, latterly, having been a member of the Sub-Committee. Having, however, achieved the victory of catching your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall be magnanimous to those whom I have beaten to the draw by briefly confining myself to two main observations.
First, appalling though the juvenile crime figures undoubtedly are, we have to resist the temptation to blame them all on the failure of the Children and Young Persons Act. It has been failing, but then we expected too much of it. We gave it too much to do by relaxing the harshness of the law governing juvenile offenders at the moment when crime generally and children's crime in particular was beginning to get out of hand. We gave its operation to those who were at that moment least able to cope with it—the local authorities in the throes of implementing Seebohm and on the threshold of the most radical reform of the structure of local government for getting on for 100 years. Central Government, having ordered the new structure, then starved it of its resources. As a result, it has frequently achieved the very reverse of its aims.
The Act wanted to keep young people out of prison, yet more and more are held on remand in prison for want of alternative secure accommodation. The Act wanted fewer young persons to be treated in institutions, yet the numbers sent to detention centres and borstal doubled between 1968 and 1973. The Act wanted more supervision within the community, yet supervision orders have dropped from 21,500 in 1969 to 18,000 in 1973.
The Act has failed mainly because it was never given a chance. But, had it succeeded, it could hardly have cured or even halted the rise in juvenile crime. For the causes of that we must turn to the breakdown in family responsibility, in school discipline, the social mores of the time and perhaps a host of other reasons which are not for discussion tonight. I


am certainly not one of those who say that the Act is all bad, though I think that there are parts of it which would be better not there, and I shall speak of some of them later.
What I want to say—bearing in mind the hard image that one inevitably gets if one spends some time in this House, as I do, seeking to strengthen the forces of law and order, seeking to tighten up our criminal processes, seeking to tip the scales of justice less favourably to the villain and advocating sterner penalties—is that those who sought by the Act to remove the behaviour of children as far as possible from the ambit of the criminal law were utterly and completely right.
As an occasional practitioner of criminal law in the juvenile courts, I must confess that it was always a miserable experience appearing in those courts, because they sought to apply adult procedures to children's behaviour and they simply did not work. If the little things were convicted, the offenders all too often received an encouraging word, a pat on the head and tuppence out of the poor box. If acquitted, they had beaten the system, they had got a smart lawyer, they had won, they had thumbed their noses at authority and the police. One could not help feeling that often they were about to be launched by their court appearance upon a further career of crime.
Therefore, with certain positive exceptions, I should like to see the Children and Young Persons Act given a fairer wind. Let the Government begin by taking steps to implement our recommendation. That is my first observation.
My second observation concerns the more serious juvenile delinquency which society must try to contain and protect itself from. Although the Children and Young Persons Act has not created the terrifying level of juvenile crime, it has done nothing to contain it. The reason is clear to all of us who heard the witnesses who came before the Committee. The Act does not differentiate between the disturbed child and the child who needs to be punished. This was the point made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner.)
As we ourselves said in the Committee,

The major failing of the 1969 Act is that it is not wholly effective in differentiating between children who need care, welfare, better education and more support from society and the small minority who need strict control and an element of punishment.
What in essence is wrong is that there has been a breakdown in the degree of respect for authority which every child ought to have. The Act has encouraged that breakdown rather than discouraged it.
If magistrates feel helpless, that helplessness communicates itself to the offending child, who is encouraged to continue his offences. If police officers feel helpless, the offending child takes heart in his wrong-doing and probably goes on to lead more and more children astray. As long as fines remain unenforceable and are not attributable to parents—I am grateful to the Minister for showing agreement with the particular recommendation of ours—as long as magistrates have no real power to determine what is to happen to the offender, and as long as the headmasters of community homes, every time they want to discipline the children in their care have first to telephone the social worker, who comes along and is seen to be a very young, charming but utterly useless young lady, so long will the Act continue to fail.
It is because these simple truths were so obvious to the Committee that we particularly made Recommendation 4 for a secure care order where a care order has failed; Recommendation 6 concerning a sanction for the non-payment of fines—I am delighted that the Minister welcomed this; Recommendation 23, for the making and enforcing of conditions to be attached to a supervision order; and Recommendation 36, which provides for a closer liaison of the authorities in the following through of the progress of young offenders after they have been dealt with.
Even more significant was our attitude to the rôle of institutions in checking juvenile crime. Speaking entirely for myself, it seemed crazy enough that the Children and Young Persons Act proposed the raising of the age of criminal responsibility to 14—particularly crazy at a time when the forces of law and order have enough to cope with, with very scant resources. It is more crazy in a sense to propose the abolition of


attendance centres, detention centres and borstals.
There must be somewhere to send young serious offenders for training and sometimes, if not always, for punishment. Corporal punishment is out, though many in the country, and I think in the House too, are still mourning its passage, but let us not throw away all the sanctions against the persistent small minority of serious offenders. I therefore think that Recommendations 9 and 10, to retain attendance centres and to expand the use of detention centres, are among our most sensible proposals and that they will certainly be welcomed by a large majority of the public.
I ask the Minister not to damn Recommendation 9, since he has only the guess of hard-pressed detention centre staff to support his view while the Committee had the experience of the working Hamburg system to back its view. I hope he will think long and hard before he rejects any of these recommendations, which are the fruit of a great deal of dedicated work in the Committee and by those who came to speak to us.
I conclude by joining in the congratulations to the hon. Lady the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short). This was my first Select Committee. So charming and friendly was the hon. Lady and so kind were her colleagues that I have re-enlisted and am now a member of the Sub-Committee which is considering preventive medicine, again under the chairmanship of the hon. Lady. It would astonish the country to see how the Left and the Right, including the extremes of the Left and the Right, work together in this place and come to such happily sensible, agreed and moderate conclusions for the good of the country. It astonished me.
I hope that I do not sour the atmosphere of concord with which I am concluding my speech if I say that I think it is pathetic, if the Government are concerned about juvenile crime, that they have taken so long to do nothing to implement these proposals. Perhaps the Minister will now resign.

11.11a.m.

Mrs. Millie Miller: My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) and the hon.

Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) have quoted from the conclusion of the Committee in paragraph 167. Both left out some of the most important points made by the Committee, points of which the House, I think, needs reminding, in view of the debate.
My hon. Friend left out the words:
The extent to which a particular child may commit offences which go seriously beyond sheer mischief depends on social deprivation (bad housing, poverty, poor schooling, broken families) more than any other factor.
It is interesting how often the life experience of adults charged and convicted in the criminal courts includes various factors in those categories. The hon. Member for Burton also spoke selectively of the small minority who need direct control and an element of punishment. He did not include the sentence:
We strongly recommend, within the framework of the Act, a major shift of emphasis away from custodial and punitive techniques
I would say to the Minister that it is wrong to suggest that any criticism of the Children and Young Persons Act is detrimental to the philosophy behind the Act. There are areas in which changes of emphasis can greatly improve the working of the Act without abandoning the philosophy on which it is founded.
I have received a suggestion—I do not claim it as my brainchild—about the problem of the secure care order. It has come from the consultant psychiatrist in charge of the Institute of Child Psychology. He suggests that, if it is felt that there is a need for some kind of secure care order, that should be dealt with in the same way as committals under Section 25 of the Mental Health Act and that if the social worker and the psychiatrist who have been called upon to give reports on a young person recommend a secure order, that should go before the courts as a proposal In that case the court, having considered all the facts, would have the right to decide for or against the making of an order rather than be dependent on an individual social worker's views and rather than make a decision based on its own view of the gravity of the offence that the child had committed, which often, according to the Report, is based on the court's view of the gravity of offences generally.
In other words, the number of times that a child has committed offences and


the consideration of whether he has seriously damaged property and so on is often a deciding factor in the view which the court takes. This suggestion would take it out of the hands of the court for the purpose of getting a report on the child but would give the court the right to make the decision based on expert evidence.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor) drew attention to the crisis in the provision of residential staff. Many of those engaged in residential care work are unsuitable and lack the necessary training. The Committee has recommended attracting back into social work those who left to get married or for other reasons. There is a vast pool of people who are willing and anxious to take part in some form of social work. Many men and women could give love and concern to children in need. The Government must find the resources to bring these people back into social work, to operate either in residential establishments or in their own homes and to provide shelter for young people who are in difficulties.
In my constituency, many mature men have given up the rat race of commercial life in order to train as social workers, probation officers and teachers. There are women who would dearly love to be involved in this kind of service to the community, but they cannot do it when training for the basic social work certificate takes about two years full-time. Although the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work is providing the possibility of shorter training terms, training is hedged about with conditions which would make it unacceptable to returners or to those who want to start from scratch.
A one-year crash training scheme based on the idea which has been suggested tonight—the emergency teacher-training scheme operated after the war—could provide the kind of people to deal with delinquent youngsters and who could satisfy many, if not all, of the needs. Training in dealing with delinquent youngsters is of importance. The changes in social work that have flowed from the interpretation of the Seebohm Report by local authorities have meant that many people who specialise in child care have been

shunted around to other departments. Many who have come fresh from university have no experience of life on which to base their way of handling young people who often come from backgrounds which are markedly different from their own. It is worrying that people come straight from university into an area where they assume that they are doing good to the poor and the needy but in doing so often try to impose their views of society and of the changes needed in it upon families whose standards and understanding of society are so different from their own.
In speaking to large groups of social workers in training, I have told them that although they may want to change society—and I firmly agree with them in wanting to make drastic changes in the way society is organised—they must not do it in their capacity as social workers. Their duty as social workers is to care for the people who are committed to them.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: That is quite right.

Mrs. Miller: Their duty is to do the job for which they are being trained. By all means in their spare time let them join whichever political party takes their fancy, and set about changing society through it, but they must not do it in their capacity as social workers. A good deal of the unhappiness that is caused between clients and social workers arises because this is not the appropriate way for those engaged in social service to operate. They are operating in an extremely delicate area of relationships where they are entrusted with the confidence of families who are severely deprived. The young people in their care are often pressurised by society into accepting all kinds of judgments, which the social worker may encourage, without realising the damage they are doing.
We need to look again at the way social workers are trained. Some young people from university have implanted in their minds certain preconceived ideas. For example, we have heard tonight of social workers who say that the mother is the first consideration and that her prestige in her mother rôle must be maintained, even in circumstances where her treatment of her children has been outrageous by any standards.
In cases brought to the attention of the public last week in the Bedfordshire County Council area, the fact that girls have entered into or remained in prostitution after being taken into care by a local authority, whose duty it is to care for and protect them, has been explained away by social workers saying that this was allowed in order to gain their confidence. I suggest that the way to gain young people's confidence is not necessarily to grant them all the licence they require in life.
I worked for a number of years as a young person's adviser in a school in inner London where many of the girls were at least as prone as the girls in Bedfordshire to take to the streets to supplement their income. It is entirely wrong that local authorities should use the lever of granting licence as a means of gaining young persons' confidence.
The London Boroughs Children's Regional Planning Committee said in its evidence to the Select Committee:
There seems little doubt that the prevailing fashion in much of society is to question any restraint on a person's behaviour.
I do not believe that that is the prevailing fashion in society. It may be the prevailing fashion in the media and some trendies, but most working-class families do not accept it and are distressed beyond measure when their children get into difficulties which are compounded by those who are supposed to be helping and protecting the children from the ills which undoubtedly exist in society.
Much can be done in schools to help young people. Social workers are not fitted, as Islington's director of social services said in his evidence to the Committee, to exercise a near-judicial function. Neither their training nor, often, their experience qualifies them to operate that kind of function in making recommendations to courts.
Social workers often ignore the advice and experience of teachers who know the life style of the young persons concerned and the real problems which may have led to delinquency and the need to take them out of the home.
I have had considerable correspondence from teachers who have made this point strongly. They say that, if only they had been consulted, they would have

been able to help. In the school at which I worked, teachers were encouraged to share the knowledge they had of the children and—with the consent of the family—any family problems with those trying to help and advise not only the child but the whole family.
It has been represented time and again that the extreme youth of some social workers inhibits the work they ought to be doing. I do not believe that there is a case for people without experience of any other facet of life than going from school to university operating on families whose understanding of situations is quite different.
Only this morning I had an approach from the head of a school for maladjusted children in the London area. He talked about the setting up of assessment centres. He said that in his borough £¼ million is to be spent on providing an assessment centre. He said that the highly-skilled professional people at the centre would be making vital decisions about the future life of young people, which would be very nice except, as everyone has said tonight, that there will be nowhere for the young people to go after the assessment centre has assessed their needs.
If we are looking for resources to replace some of the decisions that have already been made about the provision additional staff, I see from the Report that when people have been able to choose between accommodation and staff they have gone wholeheartedly for staff. There must be many buildings lying around every authority area which could be adapted to provide assessment centres. A quarter of a million pounds of capital expenditure could perhaps be transferred to current expenditure for the purpose of providing more trained people to help in this area.
The head of the school for maladjusted children also mentioned cases in his area of young, naughty, adolescent girls—anyone who has had a daughter of adolescent age in the past decade will know that they are very often naughty—being thrown out of their homes by their mothers, accepted into care by the local authority and then placed in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. I find this a horrifying situation.
The head told me about a 14-year-old girl who was placed in bed-and-breakfast


accommodation and who was pregnant within three months. Is it any wonder that she became pregnant? How can a local authority, with the duty of care and protection put a child of that age into bed-and-breakfast accommodation? We condemn it time after time when families—mothers, fathers and children—are put into such accommodation. Surely we should condemn the practice a hundredfold when young and unprotected girls are involved.
Perhaps I have spoken longer than is my usual wont. I have tried to restrict the length of my speech in the normal way, but this is a matter of enormous value and importance. I feel that some of my comments have been different from those in former speeches. I hope that I have made a few practical suggestions about approaching some of the problems which face us. If that is so, it is because of the Report which the Committee has presented to the House. An ideal vehicle has been provided to enable us to draw attention to the many problems that exist in our society for young people.

11.29 p.m.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: The speech of the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mrs. Miller) has done a service to the House and has thrown a fresh light on this subject. She spoke much plain good sense. I am most grateful to the hon. Lady.
I can confirm one of the hon. Lady's own impressions. The headmaster of a large school in my constituency who has a truancy problem discovered that a family, one of whose children was playing truant regularly, had been approached by the social worker. The mother of the girl in question was most anxious that her daughter should continue at school, but the social worker had told the girl not to worry about it because truancy was just a way of making protest against society. That was a wholly irresponsible thing for any social worker to have said. It could subvert the authority of the mother and the headmaster and make a nonsense of the magistrates' court.
I do not suggest that that is in any way representative of the way in which social workers behave. Most of them do a good job. I agree, however, with the hon. Member for Ilford, North that

some young social workers who have known classrooms and universities but little else would do well to be modest in offering advice in that manner.
I hope that the hon. Lady will not take amiss my comment on her observation that a number of people have moved from commerce to the social services. There are some advantages in the social services these days. There is job security which is not to be had in commerce in Britain today. There is a company car which might be at risk in commerce in Britain today.
I agree with the hon. Member for Ilford, North about the problems of juveniles and many other social problems, but in the end our nation has to earn its living. If too many people move from commerce to the social services, we shall have no resources at all.

Mrs. Millie Miller: It is interesting to note that, according to today's Press reports, industry is to spend about £30,000 to convince young people in schools of the need to go into productive industry. Schools and universities recognise that the recent trend away from anything to do with industry is not necessarily because of job security but is because young people are not happy in the competitive commercial world. Social workers in local authorities do not have company cars.

Mr. Griffiths: In the interests of making progress, I must get on with my speech.
This problem has two different aspects. The first is our proper concern for the juvenile offender, and the second is our proper concern for the protection of society as a whole. I do not find it as easy as did the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) to arrive at a single settled view of this complex dilemma.
The Minister, as always, was quietly spoken and careful, but he was complacent. He did not give an adequate answer to the points made by the Committee, as I hoped he would. He was equally complacent in showing a less than adequate concern for the needs of society.
I am well aware of the pitfalls in criminal statistics and I know that not all offences committed by youngsters are serious—many are not. I accept that many young people who fall foul of the


law are more sinned against than sinning. I accept that they are the products of bad housing, bad parents, bad schools and bad environment. I accept that they are more deprived than depraved—that is not my phrase. But our sympathy for these children ought not to blind us to the fact that there are in our society today a few juvenile brutes.
I use that ugly word because it has been my experience and that of the Police Federation, in which I declare an interest, that there are in our society a few teenage thugs who beat up defenceless old people for fun. There are a few teenage sadists who enjoy torturing young children. There are a few hardened professional criminals who, at the age of 15, 16 or 17, live by crime in our society. These things need to be said at the same time as we are considering, as we are right to do, how to handle the large majority of juveniles who fall foul of the law and whose offence is very much less.
In saying these things, I am reflecting the views of one group of people in our country who have to deal with young criminals in a somewhat different fashion from that of the social worker. I am talking, of course, of the police. The majority of policemen have as much sympathy for the youngsters with whom they deal as any other group in our society.
Consider, however, two recent examples that have come my way. One is of a 15-year-old girl found guilty of a number of offences, the last of them a serious assault on her head teacher. This girl has a number of convictions. She has, I am sorry to say, already done a period in Holloway. I am sure that it did her no good, although she told us that she enjoyed it. I imagine that that was braggadocio, but that was what she said.
Until recently the girl was engaged in terrorising—I use that word very carefully—the headmistress and some of the staff of a school to such an extent that the headmistress had to be ordered by the governors to have a period of sabbatical leave, not because she is having a mental or emotional breakdown—the headmistress is perfectly well—but because of the possible threat to her life.
The girl in question has been in care. She is occasionally drunk. I accept that she may well be psychologically disturbed—the psychiatrist's report is awaited. However, I know from my personal ex-

perience that the headmistress and a number of the staff have been living in fear for their lives. The head teacher has been subjected to the whole apparatus of the telephone ringing in the middle of the night: when she picks it up, there is heavy breathing and then a menacing silence, no doubt something picked up by the girl from a television film. Over a period of months there has been an effort by this girl to terrorise the staff of the school, and she has succeeded to the extent that the headmistress has now been ordered away.
Into this situation there have ventured six different agencies and, I believe, 13 different personalities from the various agencies—probation, care, social workers, psychiatrists, the lot, The case came to me only when the deputy headmaster got so worried that he thought that the wretched Member of Parliament should be brought in to try to arrive at what he called co-ordination of the many agencies.
I give this example for one reason only. I have reached a sad conclusion in this case. Much as the 13 personalities from the six agencies are trying to help the girl, there is a wider duty—to protect the school. That is a duty to protect society, and there is a duty to ensure that the work of 13 personalities is not denied to the rest of the community. We cannot afford to use these human resources on one girl for an indefinite period. They are needed by many other members of our society. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that the girl will have to be put into detention. Yet as far as I can discover that is precisely what the court is not in a position to do, because having made an order it does not find it possible at present to vary it
I come to my second illustration, which is a little less sombre, that of a 13-year-old boy whose mother said to him the other day, using the sort of threat that mothers will use, "If you do that I'll bring a bobby to you." This youngster, a precocious lad, had had an hour's course in elementary sociology at his school, and he replied "Don't you realise, Mum, that the only result would be a care order? "His mother did not know what a care order was. He added that if he had any luck he would be sent to a community home where, he had learned from his mates, the cooking was "a great deal better than yours, Mum."
That is no doubt an untypical case. It was related to me by a High Court judge. The point I want to leave with the Minister is that in our society today there are not only deprived children. There are some young brutes. The House and the Government have a duty to protect society against them as well as to care for other children who fall foul of the law.
I turn briefly to the Report, on which I wish to cite two pieces of evidence. The first is that of the Magistrates' Association, which said in paragraph 2 of its memorandum:
The Act sought, broadly, to substitute care and treatment for punishment for young offenders. For most of them this has worked quite well. For a minority of tough sophisticated young criminals (and some youths of 15 and 16 are strong young men) it has been disastrous. They prey on the community at will, even after courts have placed them in care. They deride the powerlessness of the courts to do anything effective. They are encouraged to become criminals. The essential problem is therefore to provide the courts with greater powers and facilities where they are clearly needed for persistent young offenders.
I take those words very seriously.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Does not the hon. Gentleman know that the only difference before 1969 was that there was an approved school to go to, the institution which is now a community home and which the friendly judge and the precocious child that the friendly judge down at "Truncheons" knows could easily be recognised as the same kind of institution?
It is not that there was a golden age before 1969 which has now disappeared, to the great chagrin of the Police Federation. It is simply that we have some very difficult children for whom it is very difficult to see what kind of suitable response there should be within the kind of range that a civilised society would accept as tolerable. There are things which we could do to 15-year-old children but which no civilised country would ever accept. We could send them all to Holloway or some other prison, but nobody wants that. Within the range of possibilities, there is not a great deal of difference between what happens now and what happened then.

Mr. Griffiths: I am obliged to the Minister for that little lecture, but I do not remember talking about the period before 1969. I do not regard it as a golden age. I do not quite see the point of the hon. Gentleman's intervention, although I was very glad to have it. I simply wish him to take seriously the evidence of the Magistrates' Association.
This evening we have had eloquent speeches from hon. Members who have been concerned for the care of the juvenile. I am trying to some extent to redress the balance by saying that there is another aspect of the problem—the protection of society. I ask the Minister to take seriously the judgment of the Magistrates' Association, which represents throughout the country many thousands of men and women of wide experience of all political and no political backgrounds. I hope that he will not ignore what the Magistrates' Association said or imply that magistrates imagined that all was well before 1969—of course not. They are identifying the problem, they put it eloquently and I ask the Minister to recognise their concern and take seriously their advice.
The second piece of advice I wish the Minister to consider is that of the police. The police have a view that needs to be taken seriously by the House. Without going into great detail, I shall take three or four items at random by quotation.
The first is a general commentary by the Police Federation:
Those involved in implementing the Act know well that many juveniles commit offences which are not caused by their surroundings. The depraved child is not necessarily deprived.
If the Minister has any doubt about that, let him consider Patty Hearst. I would not describe her as coming from a deprived background, but she was certainly a dangerous criminal by any measure.
The Police Federation goes on to say:
The considerable increase in the powers of local authorities and the intended withdrawal of any means of deterrence from magistrates (by the withdrawal of attendance centres and detention centres) have brought about an unbalancing treatment. The application of the Act means that it is impossible to separate adequately the psychologically disturbed from those who need strong punitive measures or a restricted environment.


I hope that the Minister will consider that view, which is shared by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner).
On the question of fines—an important matter which the Minister dealt with in some detail—the police say:
It seems incomprehensible that magistrates should retain the power to fine juveniles when they have no practical means of enforcing payments. There is a power to order a parent or a guardian to pay a fine. Unfortunately, this is so hedged by qualifications as to be unavailable in a great many cases when it would be useful.
The police then make the recommendation endorsed by my hon. and learned Friend:
There should be a vicarious liability on parents for fines arising out of their children's behaviour
where they can be shown to have contributed to it. That is a sound recommendation which I hope the Minister will consider. He said that the White Paper is not yet complete.
On the supervision orders, the police say:
The probation order was in lieu of sentence. A breach enabled the court to deal in some other way with the original offence. The supervision order replacing it is virtually a sentence in itself. It is a serious mistake for the court to have no sanction for those offenders failing to submit to supervision. This makes the order ineffective in many cases. Surely, if an offender fails to submit to supervision, he should be brought back to court and sentenced to the original offence.
Again, I ask the Minister to take this recommendation seriously.
My last police recommendation concerns the children who are returned home for care simply because the social worker can find no other place for them. The Police Federation says:
Once a child is returned home, it is then free to commit further offences while still in the notional care and legal custody of the local authority.
I hope that the Minister will look at the following point, because it is at the heart of the matter:
But the philosophy of the 1969 Act Is that a child must have committed a criminal offence because of his unfortunate background. To return him to the unfortunate family background defeats the object of the Act.
How right that must be. Young offenders must be taught that crime cannot always be blamed on unfortunate circum-

stance and that in some cases it must result in penal sanctions.
Let me sum up the evidence submitted by the Police Federation. It is as follows:
Magistrates are now powerless in this field. This brings both them and the law into disrespect. We are paying the price of an Act motivated by well-intentioned theory, rather than practical experience. Children are being encouraged further along the highway of crime. Far too many are being caught with a grin on their faces saying, ' I've got off with it ', then going back to their friends and becoming heroes. Other youngsters follow the leader and get involved in criminal acts due to the lack of deterrent punishment. There is no question by those who deal with these matters closely that 'teeth' should be put back into treatment and punishment of young offenders.
I hope that the Minister will take those points seriously.
I end by making these short recommendations on my own account. First, I hope that the Minister and his governmental colleagues will judge it best to retain responsibility for these matters within the Home Office. I am not the greatest admirer of the Home Office. I have had harsh things to say about it. But in this matter I feel it best that that responsibility should remain with the Home Office.
Secondly, I believe that more responsibility needs to be placed on the parent, especially on the parents of young persistent offenders. Thirdly, I agree on the need to retain attendance centres.
Fourthly, I believe that we need more and more secure accommodation for juveniles. I hope that the Minister will take note of the fact that in my constituency the High Point Prison is being built. However, no provision is being made in that substantial building programme for any unit of secure accommodation for juveniles to assist our local courts. They still may have to send juveniles to Holloway on remand. That is wrong, but it is also wrong that the opportunity of including such provision in the new building has not been taken. It should be possible to provide at least one secure place in East Anglia.
Next, I believe that it would be wrong to place the courts in a position where they made recommendations which were disagreed to by social workers. It cannot be right to put social workers in a position where they virtually argue with


the court in public. It is certainly not right for the child. The profession has grown so fast that it has had to draft in a large number of people who are still inadequately prepared for all the complexities. By contrast, magistrates' courts already have a great deal of wisdom and experience in these matters. To place the courts in a position where they could be virtually overruled by social workers must be wrong.
Finally I hope that the Minister will take seriously the view that in judging this whole affair, and in congratulating the Committee on its work, he should lay alongside our proper concern for children and young offenders an equal concern for the protection of our society against the criminal, however young or old that criminal may be.

11.56 p.m.

Mr. Frank Hooley: I have no intention of pursuing the News of the World anecdotes of the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths), because I do not think that our policy on young people can be properly based on that kind of story. It is far more complicated than that.
The essence of the hon. Gentleman's argument is that, if we punish viciously and crack down on people, society will be safer as a result because these young people will turn away from their wicked ways. There is absolutely no evidence of this having happened in the past, and there is no evidence that the Act was conceived or is being executed on that basis.
It is a matter of record that the success rate, in terms of non-return to crime or delinquent activity, of institutions such as detention centres and borstals is extremely poor. It is about one third. Some two-thirds of the young people who pass through those institutions go on to further delinquent activity. There is no way in which this form of deterrent—which is an obsession of some hon. Members and, I am afraid, of some members of the police—is at all helpful.
The essence of the Committee's findings was that, given the terrific upheavals which have occurred since the Act was passed, in terms of change of Government, Seebohm, local government reform and so on, there would be no

point whatever in trying to upset the whole system, and that it would be much more constructive and proper to see whether the Act can be made to work more smoothly and more effectively. That is the sense in which we have reported.
On the question of the Government's lack of reply, it is unfortunate that six months have elapsed without a formal reply from the two Departments concerned, but I do not treat this quite as seriously as do some of my colleagues. I am not sure that we look upon the procedure concerning Select Committee Reports in entirely the right way. I think there is a case for regarding them as a basis for continuing dialogue and debate within the House and, indeed, by the public and the country at large. I do not regard them in the sense that the Committees produce considered findings, that the Government then produce a considered reply, and that that is it. It is part of an extensive dialogue which must go on, in this House and outside it, between all the professions concerned.
There will never be any final conclusion or total solution to a problem of this complexity. Therefore, although I am a little sad that we have not had some considered views from the Government, I am not sure that this is something we should regard as being too disastrous at this stage. There is time and room for action at a later stage.
As a number of hon. Members have said, the key to the whole Report is to be found in paragraph 167, where it is made clear that the law as such is not likely to prevent crime or to prevent delinquency. It cannot by its nature do so. The problems of delinquent behaviour in children, as in adults, lie to a large extent in bad housing, in sheer poverty, in the break-up of families, in a squalid environment, in unemployment and sometimes, I fear, in bad schooling or incompetent teaching. There seems to be a general assumption that if a child is a truant it is his own fault. But truancy may arise from bad schooling and bad teaching. In addition to all these complex factors, there is the effect of alcohol. I know that children of this age do not themselves drink, but drink is a major factor in the break-up of family life, and alcohol is a serious factor leading to the disturbance of children


and their consequent embarking upon criminal and delinquent behaviour.
The Act set out to switch away from custodial care towards other techniques of care, and we have emphasised in our Report that there still needs to be a major shift of emphasis away from custodial and punitive techniques towards intermediate schemes, supervision and the greater use of non-residential care, especially fostering. In other words, we suggest pursuing the spirit of the original Act more vigorously than it has been pursued so far. We believe that this may achieve some greater degree of success.
But the Report does not suggest that changes in the techniques and methods of dealing with juvenile delinquency will lower the level of that delinquency. The increase in juvenile crime is a parallel factor in the rise of adult crime, and it is also a factor which has occurred widely in Western Europe and across the Atlantic.
There can be no case for blaming the 1969 Act, and I fear that there is very little to suggest that the techniques which we use to deal with the problem are likely to have much impact on the size of the problem itself. We have to be certain that the techniques that we use will have a valuable therapeutic effect on children who move down that path and collide with authority in one way or another.
I give my firm support to the recommendation in the Report that no child should be put in an adult prison. As long as this is legally or technically permissible, it will happen. The only way to stop it is to make it unlawful. Once that is done, I am sure that all the so-called obstacles about not being able to find alternatives will somehow be disposed of, because once people know that they cannot pursue a road they must perforce look for other roads. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will see to it that that recommendation is implemented.
Another unhappy facet of our inquiry was the abuse we found of the unruly certificate technique in order to have a child confined in some form of custodial care. This is not the fault of the court. The application for an unruly certificate much come from the social workers, but nevertheless the number of unruly certificates applied for and granted, coupled

with the fact that in many cases they have been granted in respect of children who have not been under custodial sentence at all, is disturbing.
We have had a case quoted in which a certificate was asked for in respect of a child who had never been in a home or in the care of a local authority. How the idea was arrived at that the child was unruly was something of a mystery to the Committee.
I am surprised that the Minister should be hostile to the idea of shorter detention sentences. It was put to us in Hamburg, where the authorities were clear that a short sentence could be useful and effective but that a longer sentence of detention was not valuable in correcting the behaviour of a child. Certainly I would not wholly accept the argument that if this idea is adopted magistrates will simply regard it as an extra shot in the locker and go on madly sentencing children to three and six months' sentences and in addition cheerfully seize on the idea of seven or ten-day detention centres as an extra device to deal with other cases. That is not the intention of the Committee, and I hope that if the idea is adopted the magistracy will not adopt that attitude.
We as a Committee were much impressed by the possibilities, largely un-realised as yet, of intermediate treatment. Perhaps I should quote a paragraph on this from the Report, because it sets out the position very well. Paragraph 105 states:
The possibility of helping a delinquent child without removing him from his own community by providing for him the possibility of new interests and new relationships is central to the Act. ' Children in Trouble ' refers to bringing a child into contact with a new environment and to his participation in some constructive activity. Intermediate treatment can be much more easily adapted to fit the individual child than can custodial care.

Mr. Steen: It was stated five years ago that intermediate treatment was a good thing. Nothing has been done and no provision whatever has been made. The hon. Member is merely echoing what was said many years ago.

Mr. Hooley: I do not agree. The intervention of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen) would have been more to the point if he had paid some attention to the debate this


evening, which he has not. I shall finish my quotation:
The skill lies in discovering the child's own interests and using these as the basis of successful intermediate treatment.
It is not correct to say that the technique has not been used. We visited a centre where it was being used, and we were given examples of cases where a child's interest had been successfully aroused, to the considerable profit of the child.
It is no part of my argument or that of the Report that this is a sudden, new discovery. In many ways it could be argued that it was a matter of common sense. Certainly we were impressed by the possibilities of this technique, but were a little depressed by the fact that for some financial reasons, which to me were obscure, it seemed harder to get money for this more economical and satisfactory method of treatment than for ambitious schemes involving large buildings and so on.
I had a conversation with a director of social services about this matter. Her reaction was "Intermediate treatment would be very nice. Give me some extra staff to do it." We are pleading not for extra staff to do it but for a diversion of effort in this direction rather than in some less satisfactory and certainly more expensive direction. I hope that the Department of Health and Social Security will give this matter more thought and perhaps modify the financial arrangements so that authorities may follow up this technique and make wider use of it.
It follows, if we are moving away from the concept of custodial, residential care, that we need more provision for day care, more use of the technique of supervision and, above all, more use of the technique of fostering in individual homes rather than putting children into community institutions, however well trained, honest and good the staff may be.
I was encouraged by the recent report, to which the hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) referred, about the success of the Kent fostering scheme. It seems that it is possible to ask families to undertake the formidable task of fostering delinquent children. The results in general have been very encouraging. It may be that other authorities are doing

something similar but are making less publicity about it, in which case I am delighted. However, that was not the impression gained by the Committee. We gained the impression that this technique had been developed in Sweden— and, to some extent, in Holland—but that it was not nearly as well developed in this country and that greater attention should be paid to it.
One matter which has not commanded much attention in the debate—indeed, I do not think it has been mentioned at all—is whether a child coming before a court should have legal representation in his own right. As a Committee we were somewhat divided in our minds about this matter, and the Report makes that clear. We suggest that there should be a pilot scheme to cover this matter and that action might be taken in the light of what is learned from that pilot scheme. This is not a negligible matter.
There has been an assumption throughout the debate that children who come before juvenile courts and are then placed under supervision or in care must of necessity have been guilty of an offence. They may be found guilty by the court, but it does not follow that in every case the court is right. There may be a slight suspicion in the minds of some people that on some occasions a professional defence might have resulted in acquittal rather than conviction.
In this connection it must be recognised that in Scotland the police do not prosecute. There is an official—from memory, I think he is called a reporter—whose job is to decide whether any case should go before the court or whether some form of social treatment or care is more appropriate. This matter is bound up with the much wider and more fundamental question which has been aired by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) of whether the police should be allowed to prosecute in any cases at all. Personally, I take the view that they should not. Prosecution should be the business of a public prosecuting authority. That, however, is a matter which goes beyond the scope of the Report we are discussing tonight.
Perhaps on some future occasion the Sub-Committee or some other Committee


might look more closely at the Scottish system and decide whether we do not need some person or body to intervene before the matter ever gets to the court at all and to provide guidance or therapeutic action for the child without the stigma of criminality which is necessarily associated with a conviction in a juvenile court.
I am inclined to agree with my hon. Friend the Minister that our recommendation about the provision of secure accommodation runs counter in principle to the spirit of the Act. There is, perhaps, an inconsistency or irreconcilable problem here. I rather share the view of the principal of Kingswood School, which we mention in our Report, that it is not desirable to have more secure accommodation. This is a very questionable idea and is one which needs a lot more thinking about. I am inclined to agree with my hon. Friend that this is to some extent a move backwards rather than forwards. It may be that in the present situation, where we want to reconcile the protection of society and the rights of the child, we have to move in two directions at once, but certainly I am not happy about the idea of more secure accommodation. I was interested that the principal of Kingswood took that particular view.
I hope that the Report and this debate will stimulate more careful thinking and more public concern about a difficult and complicated question. I hope we shall learn of some of the Government's intentions in the not-too-distant future. I take the view that this is part of an ongoing debate and that there is no final conclusion or final answer to the problem but merely a continuing process of experiment, trial and some error in trying to cope as best we can with what, we must remind ourselves, is a small minority of our total child population who for one reason or another cannot conform to the norms of society as we have laid them down.

12.18 a.m.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I am pleased to have caught your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to enable me to make a brief contribution to this important debate. It has come at a very useful time. Very often people level criticism at Parliament for debating matters which are irrelevant to the problems of the

moment but the recommendations, and what is involved in this Report, are pertinent and relevant to the problems of this country, perhaps in a wider sphere as well, at this time.
I am also delighted to make a contribution because ever since I came into public life I have taken an active interest in young people and the problem of young people. For some four years I was a governor of the Tennal School in Birmingham—an approved school which following reorganisation changed its title and role. However, it gave me a considerable understanding of dealing with, and a knowledge of, the problems of delinquent young people.
I congratulate the hon. Lady the Member for Wolverhampton North-East (Mrs. Short), who chaired this Sub-Committee of the fuel Expenditure Committee. She provided positive leadership in guiding our deliberations. I believe that the recommendations we are debating tonight are valuable and I hope that the Government will implement the vast majority of them at a very early date. I do not often agree with the hon. Lady or with the hon. Ladies the Members for Ilford, North (Mrs. Miller) and Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor), but their speeches tonight have been very useful. They displayed an earthy realistic understanding which is often lacking from our debates.
The hallmarks of this Report are the importance of the security of human relationships, the importance of real care and love, certainly in fostering, the importance of real motivation for young people, the importance of constructive care rather than destructive and punitive restriction and the importance of a proper deterrent for the persistent young offender.
The hon. Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk), who left the Chamber immediately after making his speech, somewhat misled the House. I have some statistics which highlight the growing incidence of juvenile crime. Since 1969, in the Metropolitan Police district, the number of arrests for all age groups has increased by 30 per cent. The number of adult arrests increased by 20 per cent., but the number of arrests of juveniles has risen by 60 per cent. About 40 per cent, of those arrested in London for robbery and theft from the person are under 17. More than half of all burglars arrested are under 17. That clearly shows the growing problem.
The hon. Member also made a somewhat inaccurate reference to the success rate for detention centres, implying that they had a worse record than borstals. In fact, in paragraph 45, the Report says:
The success rate for borstals is low, although not quite as low as that for borstals. It is about 35 per cent., and for children who have previously been to approved school as low as 13 per cent., but those who favour the use of detention centres argue that the success rate would be higher if children were committed at an earlier stage in their ' careers '.
It is right to make that clarification.
Recommendation No. 1 was that the remand of young people to adult prisons should cease forthwith. The Report has created considerable interest. While the members of the probation service in my constituency fully support that recommendation, they are somewhat concerned about how it can be implemented, bearing in mind, as pointed out in a letter that I have received, that some of the youngsters concerned are amongst the most sophisticated of criminals, and further bearing in mind the lack of local authority secure accommodation. That to some degree contradicts the views of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley), who doubted the need for further secure accommodation. I feel that there is a strong need for it.
Recommendation No. 6 relates to sanctions for non-payment of fines. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) that it is quite wrong that a young person, after being fined, should be able to leave the court almost cocking a snook at the magistrate, knowing that he will never have to pay the fine. Sanctions for the non-payment of fines are certainly necessary and parents should be drawn into this area as they are inevitably responsible to a degree.
Recommendation No. 7 relates to the transfer of responsibilities from the probation service to the social services, and our recommendation is that this should be halted until social services have more qualified personnel. That is sound advice because there is considerable expertise within the probation service for dealing with young people. Until the social services are capable of dealing with young people we should retain the expertise of the probation service.
Recommendation No. 18 relates to specialisation. Many people in the probation service and the social services have told me that they believe in specialised teams working within the framework of the social services rather than the generic social work teams which seem to be the order of the day. Specialisation in dealing with young people is vital and I hope that those who are teaching and lecturing our social workers will bear this important point in mind.
The philosophy behind the children and young persons legislation is sound. I understand it to be that whatever the circumstances which precipitate the appearance of a child before a court, the needs of the child should be considered, and any decision of the court should be taken as an integral part of the programme for the child's treatment.
There are two areas in which I am particularly interested. The Report recommends that forms of treatment which are community-based should be encouraged and developed much further. I refer particularly to Paragraph 117, Recommendation No. 22, which says that resources such as intermediate treatment and day care facilities should be available to children who are assumed as being at risk, although they may not have appeared before a court.
In Macclesfield there are a number of small projects which provide outlets for the energies of young people who are "at risk" and which provide counselling for adolescents who are on the verge of trouble. I am told by those in the profession that it is always much harder to argue for resources for this kind of work. The budget for intermediate treatment this year in the whole district of Macclesfield is just £1,200, which compares badly with the £5,000 a year that it costs to keep one young offender in secure care. This indicates that in our deliberations and recommendations we are concerned to provide not only the right kind of care for the young persons, but value for money for the community, too.
Therefore I make a strong appeal to the Minister of State, who has remained present throughout the debate, indicating the importance which he attaches to the Report and the debate, to strengthen the resources for dealing with the problems at an early stage so that we may prevent real problems from developing later.
Recommendation No. 4 deals with secure care orders. From representations made to me, I understand that some social workers have reservations about the recommendation and about paragraph 25 which is related to it. I believe that social workers can readily appreciate the frustrations of magistrates and others when children who are already the subject of care orders reappear before their courts. This matter was dealt with superbly by my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst who, as a magistrate, has considerable experience of these matters. Some of these children have absconded from community homes and others have been allowed home on a trial basis. Most social workers share these frustrations and do not allow children to remain in unsatisfactory placements. However, all too often social workers have to subject children to situations which are often the third, fourth or fifth choice because the range of resources are inadequate to meet the child's needs.
The problem is not just in the shortage of secure places—the new centre opening in Warrington next year will help—but also in the shortage of other places into which children can be moved. In Cheshire, one girl had to wait nine months for a place in a community school and this is a long time in the life of a teenager.
I doubt whether legislation would make much difference at this stage. The nation and the social services, in particular, are littered with laws which can scarcely be implemented because of the lack of resources. This inability to carry out the good intentions of the Act has resulted in the legislation and, to some extent, social work being discredited. It is irresponsible to pass far-sighted legislation without providing the financial backing to give it a reasonable chance of operating successfully. I suppose the Committee of which I was a member could be criticised for not considering further this particular aspect of the Act's working and implementation.
To those of us on this side of the House, it was splendid to hear such good sense in the speech of the hon. Member for Ilford, North, who has had considerable experience in dealing with young people. The events in Bedfordshire to which she referred have not helped the social services or social workers to get the recognition and money they need.
In an editorial headed "Value Judgment" the Sunday Telegraph said on 4th April:
The fashionable notion that more expenditure is the only way to improve social services took a hard knock last week from those extraordinary stories of young girls who were alleged to have been allowed to work as prostitutes while in the case of council social workers.
What is needed in such cases, clearly, is not more money but more sense—and better values. To dismiss such episodes as "errors of judgment" is wholly inadequate. No social service with the right values could possibly perpetrate such a travesty of "welfare".
Moving from a paper on one side of the political spectrum to one on the other, in a leading article headed
Save kids from these crackpots 
the Sunday People, which can hardly be described as a Right-wing paper, said:
What is needed is a Royal Commission to examine all aspects of our welfare agencies. We must make as sure as we can that they are equipped to rescue human beings, not wreck their lives.
I hope that the House will continue to support the Act and that any change in emphasis will be to underline the flexibility both in attitude and in use of resources which is necessary to apply the legislation effectively. There is no better way to implement the Act and its purposes than by fostering—which has not been tried widely enough in this country. It has been highly successful on the Continent, particularly in Sweden and Denmark, and the Kent experiment has been an outstanding success.
Let us make the Act work. It will be of value not just to young people, but to the community as a whole.

12.35 a.m.

Mr. Anthony Steen: The remoteness of decision-makers at national and local level has been well illustrated by a number of speeches, especially by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley).
The examples that I shall give of intermediate treatment, of which I had personal and direct experience when I was a youth leader directing the Young Volunteer Force Foundation, makes a nonsense of the whole intermediate treatment concept. We had 18 community projects throughout the country that were specifically geared to help young people, especially those from disadvantaged


homes. We had six projects which were devoted entirely to delinquents and disturbed adolescents.
The projects were not only in urban areas. We had them in rural areas such as Barncott in Devon, Cwmott in Cwmbran, Slab in Bristol and Washup in Watford, all coffee bar experiments with a high proportion of professional workers to disturbed adolescents. Each project received lip service support from the local authority, but each ultimately had a reduction in grant from the local authority.
No local authority wants this sort of project on its doorstep, in the same way that no authority wants a prison in its area. Local authorities do not want detached youth projects because they attract the disturbed adolescents. As light attracts the moths, detached youth projects attract disturbed young people.
Whenever the Young Volunteer Force set up experimental projects of an intermediate treatment type they were rejected both by the community in whose area they were placed and by the local authority which was asked to finance them. The ideas that are set out in paragraphs 22, 26 and 38—namely, that greater support should be given by voluntary organisations to intermediate treatment—are hollow exhortations because there is no shortage of voluntary bodies which are prepared to respond. The problems are Government finance and local authority attitudes. Those problems prevent intermediate treatment working.
It must be said plainly and straightforwardly that intermediate treatment will not work as long as we have reactionary attitudes at local level. My experience is that those attitudes exist in most local councils throughout the country. Unless Government will give a lead, as they have in a number of projects such as the Urban Aid Programme and the Community Development Project, we shall never get intermediate treatment off the ground.
With respect to the Report, it makes critical remarks which voluntary organisations will resent—namely, that they are slow to respond to intermediate treatment. On the contrary, they have been quick

to respond. There has been apathy at local authority level.
It will be realised that the problem of detached youth work is not only that of the young people themselves. It is the problem of finding skilled professional, mature staff who can work with disturbed adolescents. They are normally young people who have come through the education system harmed. That is why they need special help, and that is what the country does not yet have available.
First, the country is not prepared to provide the necessary ratio of about one in six professional workers to a disturbed group of kids. Secondly, if there were that ratio the local authorities would resent it. Thirdly, the size of the cake permitted to voluntary bodies is decreasing. Thus, the existing facilities would have to go if there were increasing support on the intermediate treatment front. I suggest that the intermediate treatment programme is a myth and will continue indefinitely as a myth.
I now turn to residential treatment. There is a drift away from residential treatment on the basis that we do not want to lock up those who are offending the laws of our society. If we are not to lock them up we must provide some alternatives. Other than intermediate treatment there seems to be no reasonable alternative which is being offered. I suggest that there is a fundamental error in our approach. On the latest statistics I find that community homes run by local authorities cost the taxpayer £50 per young person per week. The registered voluntary home costs only £22 a week. Foster homes, where the children are boarded out, cost only £7 a week.
That indicates that statutory community homes cost a great deal. Such money should be spent on preventive work. Local authorities dislike spending money on preventive work because they cannot connect savings with such work. They say that they will wait until the window gets smashed before they repair it.
The Report lacks any completely new approach to the problems of juvenile delinquency. One can look at housing and the environment, but when it comes down to it one has to give kids some incentive not to commit crime. They


have no incentive if they do not receive help and reward for doing good. Instead of spending tens of thousands of pounds on repairing vandalism on council estates, we should be giving incentives to the community and young people not to commit vandalism. Neighbourhood councils can take responsibility for the acts of young people and local authorities should be encouraged to give such Councils the same amount of money as they spent repairing damage caused by vandalism the previous year. If money was saved the neighbourhood council should be allowed to spend it on increased community facilities which could result in a dramatic reduction in crime. That can be demonstrated by the work of a number of neighbourhood councils. But such schemes have problems. The police say that it was not the neighbourhood council which reduced vandalism but that it was increased police effectiveness. Social workers say that it was their expertise and professional staff.
Unless people are given incentives and the community is given power over its own problems, the situation will not change. Although the Report contains some enlightened thinking, it approaches the problem from the wrong end by looking at the cure rather than prevention. We shall not get the solution right until we correct that basic misapprehension. In view of the time available I shall allow other hon. Members to make their contributions.

12.43 a.m.

Mr. Peter Rees: It is a privilege to take part in a debate which has been marked by so many robust contributions from members of the Committee. I wish I could say the same of the Minister's contribution, which was suffused with enervated complacency.
Nobody has claimed that the Act created juvenile delinquency but it has done little to solve the problem. The Minister appears to be unaware of the concern felt by magistrates, teachers and probation officers. If he is unaware, it is not because he has not been told by people like myself. I have written to him and his colleagues at the Departments of Education and Science and Health and Society Security.
I quote from a letter written to me by the chairman of the juvenile panel of

the Dover and East Kent Bench. It reads:
This morning we had before us two twelve year old boys who had 'mugged' an old lady of ninety-one, threatening to hit her over the head with a milk bottle, and had stolen £26 from her purse. One is already in care. The other is in care because his mother cannot control him, although he has not previously been before the court. There is therefore no point in a further care order. Supervision is not applicable since they are in a school for maladjusted boys. To fine them adequately would be a very long-term affair, with approximately 60p pocket money, and they would be tempted to further theft if deprivation went on too long. There is no place where they can be held securely and educated in the proper sense of that word.
We are fully aware that in the Juvenile Court we are concerned with the welfare of the child, but that does not cancel out our duty to the public. They have a right to expect us to take action so that they may not fear this kind of behaviour from children of twelve years of age …
P.S. The case I have quoted is just today's burning example, but we have had many cases of a similar nature.
There is no deep philosophic divide between any of the parties taking part in this debate. It is a false dilemma to present this debate as being about the protection of society or the welfare of the child. We are all agreed that those two objectives are perfectly reconcilable. It is, however, a question of emphasis. Have we, has the Minister, perhaps under-estimated the need for correction and discipline?
Of course that must be combined with welfare arrangements and, like all my hon. Friends, I applaud the imaginative fostering arrangements introduced in my own county of Kent. I shall not dispute with my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) whether it was Kent or his area that initiated this project. Tonight, in the time available, I want merely to voice some of the points, and only some of the points, that have been put to me when I have met members of the juvenile bench in East Kent, members of the teaching profession, members of the Probation Service and members of the welfare services.
They feel that it is symptomatic of the change of emphasis that responsibility should have been transferred from the Probation Service to the welfare services. They are concerned that the age of children for whom a probation officer, with all


his wealth of experience, can be appointed as supervisor has been raised from 10 to 12, and I understand that it is contemplated raising it still further. They feel that a supervision order is quite ineffective without enforceable conditions. I should like the Minister to direct his mind to that problem.
They would like to see a return to some kind of probation order, whatever it is called, so that a child may be brought back before the court if there is a breach of an order and, if need be, in extreme cases sent to detention centres. The magistrates would like the right reestablished for their courts to send children to approved schools, and they would like a clear duty to be imposed on those schools to accept those children. They do not want to be fobbed off with the excuse that there are no places immediately available.
I should like to put a particular problem for my part of the country. There is a desperate need for an attendance centre in East Kent. The Act is stillborn if there is no attendance centre. Finally on this subject, has any thought been given to the conversion of borstals to meet the needs of the under-fourteens?
I come finally to the problem of truancy, which may underlie all this problem. I know that this is not directly the responsibility of the Minister, but I am sure that he will appreciate its interrelation with everything with which he is concerned. He did not touch on this in his speech, but has he appreciated that the school attendance rate has dropped in Kent from 93 to 89 per cent, and in the fifth year of school to 77 per cent.? What thought has been given to that? Have we re-examined the responsibilities of the school attendance officers? What deep thought has been given to throwing responsibility to where it should lie—with the parents? What thought has been given to inducements to children to attend school? What about introducing a certificate of good attendance, which might play some part in procuring a reasonable job after school?
I come to the most constructive thread that has run through speeches from both sides of the House. I hope that the Minister will give deep thought to ensuring both formal and informal regular contacts among members of the bench, the

police, welfare services, the Probation Service and the teaching profession. There is there a fund of experience which mobilised, encouraged and supported, could go at least some distance towards solving these intractable problems.
Apparently the Minister has not recognised the deep sense of impotence and frustration felt by those who give freely of their time, experience and judgment in dealing with juvenile crime. Grandiose projects of legislative reform are pointless unless they are backed by resources and continuing interest and assistance from the Departments which introduced them.
Less legislation is required, together with more thought about the implementation and consequences of legislation already on the statute book. The Government should do less and attempt to do better in the areas for which they have a primary responsibility. We shall judge the Government here not so much by the tepid contribution of the Minister tonight but by the White Paper which is so long overdue.

12.50 a.m.

Mr. Nigel Forman: I am grateful for the chance to squeeze into the debate. I shall be brief, because other hon. Members still wish to take part.
The most interesting and imaginative part of this excellent Report is that which comes under the heading "Intermediate Treatment", although I do not like the term. But if it is defined as more effort to redeem delinquent children within their own communities, it is an approach which I support. It can be particularly valuable as an antidote to the quantitative bias of all experts and bureaucrats in the social problem industry, who tend to think that strategies which cannot easily be assessed and monitored numerically are not really worth while.
Paragraph 108 puts it rather well when it says:
Most local authorities concentrated first on residential provision; it was suggested to us that preventive work in general had a low priority because its results could not easily be quantified.
Everyone concerned with juvenile delinquency and the problems of young people should concentrate above all on preventive measures, because in the light of the evidence on recidivism prevention is likely to be the most reliable long-term cure.
What does prevention require? Four or five things are needed. The first is more support for families, including the possibility of special grants to mothers who stay at home when their children are young, as is done I believe in France. There is no denying the ever-increasing number of mothers who have to go out to work to get away from home or meet the financial needs of the family. This contributes to the so-called latch key problem, which is often at the root of juvenile delinquency problems.
The second need is higher priority for nursery education, a good investment for the future.
The third is a return to more traditional standards and methods in school, to produce more literacy and more numeracy. There is no doubt that children who are both literate and numerate stand a much better chance in society and will be able to contribute more constructively. It might be said that violence is the language of the inarticulate and the inadequate.
Fourthly, we need improved facilities for children of all ages and the more intensive use of existing facilities. I am thinking of the more intensive use of schools, polytechnics, universities, libraries, art centres, sports centres and the rest. In my constituency there is a very hopeful new development at the Westcroft sports centre, which is shortly to be completed.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen) about the importance of voluntary effort in all these matters. Volunteer and part-time helpers have a great contribution to make, whether they are called the "barefoot doctors" of social work, auxiliary social workers or pastoral auxiliaries, as is the case in the Diocese of Southwark. In short, there should be a movement away from the gradual professionalisation of social work towards lower-cost, more casual and less stigmatising efforts to help young people.
Finally, I suggest that above all we want to rethink and adapt our housing policies and the conventional approach to town planning. All too often in recent years architects and planners have merely created new concrete and glass slums for our young people to grow up in. There are examples in my constituency. The

further we can get away from that sort of town development, the better chance we shall have of not creating the rootless and alienated young people amongst whom these problems arise.
Bored, alienated and rootless adults will tend to raise bored, alienated and rootless children. We must realise that it is always valuable to invest the maximum effort, time and money in our children and, because they are the country's future, no effort or concern should be spared.

12.55 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Mayhew: I apologise for having missed the Minister's speech, but my absence was inevitable because of a constituency engagement. I did, however, hear the Minister's intervention in the speech made by my lion. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths). I rather regretted the hon. Gentleman's reference to the friendly judge down at Truncheons. I have 17 years' experience of orders made by that judge in criminal cases, and I know that he displays compassion as he displays realism. A mixture of compassion and realism is required by everyone who deals with problem children in our society.
The Report identifies three major shortcomings in residential care: its enormous expense, its doubtful efficacy and the apparent insuperable difficulty in getting enough staff to service even the existing provision. Whatever our views as to the right response to children in trouble, we can all agree that the Committee has rightly identified three deeply disturbing shortcomings. Those shortcomings alone would force us to examine other ways of dealing with these children.
There is a small minority of juvenile "brutes", as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds described them, who, as much for the protection of themselves as of society, have to be kept in secure conditions. There are two main reasons why it is important, as the Committee recommends, to turn from the concept of residential care as a norm. First, children often find a bad example to be much more attractive than a good one, so that it has become a cliché to describe custodial institutions for young people as universities of crime. Secondly, as a nation we are increasingly apt to offload our more difficult fellow creatures on to agents and, provided those agents keep


them alive, out of our sight and out of the newspapers, we do not greatly trouble further.
That is what we do with our old people to an extent that is found astonishing by the nations we are pleased to describe as under-developed. We do it with our mentally ill—St. Augustine's, Chartham, is the last in a melancholy series of examples—and we are doing it with our problem children. How else can we explain a system of priorities that permits the treatment of delinquents to be carried out—as the Committee records in paragraph 90—
by totally unskilled and totally inexperienced staff in most instances"?
How else can we explain the fact that the resources allocated to residential care mean that children sometimes have to be kept in the assessment centre for anything up to a year before they can be placed? One does not need to be a child psychologist in the technical sense to have an accurate idea of what that is likely to achieve.
I was gladdened by the reference in the report to the experiment carried out in Kent to which my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) and other hon. Members referred. I spoke today to the Director of Social Services and the Chairman of the Social Services Committee for that county, which is mine, and I was given one very heartening example. A boy has now been in a foster home for just over a year. He is 10 years old and was taken from Canterbury Prison, having absconded numerous times in the past, having committed offences of burglary, criminal fraud, and the taking and driving away of motor vehicles—indeed, a record a yard long. One does not want to make too much of an individual case and there are only 30 children in care in the foster scheme at present, but it must be said that that boy has not put a foot wrong, and this has now been the case for over a year. Only one child has left; and only one child has been before the court again.
That scheme may prove to be the way forward. We shall have to look to the situation five years hence to see what the record is then. The situation appears to be very encouraging. Therefore, I hope that the Government will give firm en-

couragement to local authorities to provide the necessary funds for a fostering scheme. It has been proved in Kent that we are able to obtain foster parents of high quality provided that we are able to offer a professional fee.
In conclusion, I wish to make two or three short points. Let me first mention legal representation. I appreciate the difficulties that can arise in this sphere. My hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) came out against legal representation of children in juvenile courts. However, I believe that children should be represented—not only in terms of the assistance given to the court in the form of a duty solicitor, as recommended in the Report, but because of the overall assistance which can be provided by a legal representative. Valuable assistance can be afforded to the court in this way.
This is not to overlook the fact that a child is likely to have his liberty taken away from him and to have recorded against his name the order made by the court, so that when subsequently he comes before a court that is the record with which he will have to deal. That is an important point.
Elsewhere in the Report complaints are made that welfare workers often do not know enough about court procedure, and it is said that this contributes to a lack of confidence among magistrates in welfare workers. Kent is showing the way in this respect. It has appointed court officers who are experienced in court procedures and who put forward to the magistrates the case of each individual child. That is an important step forward and I hope that it will be copied.
We must be careful not to add our voices to those who complain of the number of people who supervise against those who carry out the actual work, because in the cases of Maria Colwell and Stephen Mears it was found that there was not enough supervision. Therefore, it is important to bear in mind the fact that supervisory staff have an important part to play.
I want to come to the contractual element in what used to be the probation order and is now the care order. This is brought out in the Report. The Magistrates' Association has dwelt on this matter and there is an important element


in the order made in the case of any child offender. The contractual element involves the child accepting conditions and, if he breaks them, he must suffer the consequences. This is an important point. The absence of such a contract has no doubt contributed to many of the evils mentioned in this debate.
When the Government put forward their reactions to this excellent Report, I hope that some of the proposals I have raised will be adopted by them. It is high time that we had their reactions to the Report.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House takes note of and welcomes the Eleventh Report from the Expenditure Committee in the last session of Parliament (House of Commons Paper No. 534).

MEMBERS' SALARIES

Resolved,
That, in the opinion of this House, the salary payable to a person in respect of service as a Member of this House at any time after 12th June 1975 when he is receiving a salary under Schedule 2 to the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975 or a pension under section 26 of the Parliamentary and other Pensions Act 1972 should be at the rate of £3,700 a year.— [Mr. John Ellis.]

SOCIAL SECURITY (MEDICAL STUDENTS)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.— [Mr. John Ellis.]

1.5 a.m.

Mr. David Lane: I am glad to have this chance of raising a general problem that is highlighted by the facts of a particular constituency case. I have told the Minister—I am glad to see him in his place on the Treasury Bench—that I wish to describe this case in anonymous terms. I believe that my constituent and his family have already suffered enough, without the added ordeal of publicity.
Whatever else the Minister says in his reply, I hope he will be able to assure me that he will carry through, with his officials, a fresh review of the problems of medical students and of post-graduate students generally, so far as the social

security system in its present form affects them.
I shall try to summarise fairly the sequence of events. Dr. X, the son of one of my constituents, died in 1974 at the age of 28, when he was employed as a junior hospital doctor. In fact, he took his own life, having discovered that he was suffering from very advanced heart disease, but undoubtedly a contributory factor to this tragedy was the extreme stress and long hours of overwork during his two and a half years as a junior hospital doctor, when he often had to work as much as a 120-hour week. This is an aspect to which I shall revert in a moment.
Dr. X left a widow and a baby son. Until he qualified at the age of 25, he had trained as a medical student. His fees and expenses were met out of his father's taxed income, apart from a small contribution from his local authority. He had married in October 1971. He took his final MB examination in December 1971, and he started his first job in a hospital in February 1972.
For natonal insurance purposes he had entered into insurance in 1961. While a student he paid a few contributions, but he paid regularly weekly contributions during his final years while he was employed in hospital. When his widow applied for a widow's pension, she was told that her husband's total contributions amounted only to 152, that is, four short of the necessary minimum. Therefore she was informed that she could not qualify for a widow's pension.
At this point I should mention—I shall revert to this also later—that Dr. X's widow had paid contributions on her own account for five years before her marriage while she was at work, and subsequently, working as a nurse, she had also paid full national insurance contributions during a period of seven weeks between her husband's qualifying and his starting his first house job in hospital.
When my constituent came to me with these facts, I checked the position with the manager of the local office of the Department of Health and Social Security, and discovered that he had no discretion to alter the initial decision. My constituent and I met the then Under-Secretary, the Minister's immediate predecessor, to go over the ground


of the case, with the same negative result. After that, my constituent set in train, on behalf of his daughter-in-law, an appeal to the Secretary of State for a formal decision whether the contribution conditions were in fact satisfied. In December last year, that decision was given judicially by one of the Minister's senior officers, and the decision was that the conditions were not satisfied and that the arrears of contributions could not be paid so as to count towards the satisfaction of those conditions.
Later, the present Minister confirmed to me—I am grateful for the personal care that he has taken over this case since succeeding to his present job—that there was no possibility of an ex gratia payment to the widow.
In putting a few questions to the Minister which arise out of this sequence of events, I acknowledge that new rules apply, since about a year ago, so that the minimum period of qualifying contributions has been reduced from three years to one year. But that is no help to the widow of Dr. X, and even if it were she would come up against the rule about averaging contributions over a 10-year period, so that the pension for which she might have qualified would be still at a fairly derisory level.
Looking back over this whole tragic story, my first question is whether the system could not be operated with greater flexibility. I realise that we have to have rules, but it seems over-rigid that in a borderline case of this kind it has proved impossible to find just four extra weeks' credit of contribution for the period of about eight years that my constituent's son spent as a student. Could not credit have been taken, for example, for those several years of contribution by the widow before she married, and especially for the seven weeks between his qualifying and his first house job? As I understand the position, it appears that the benefits from a man's contribution count for considerably more than those from a woman's, and I wonder how the Minister would justify that in terms of the Sex Discrimination Act.
I believe that there might be more flexibility left to the Secretary of State and to other Ministers in the Department in cases such as

this and I recall the flexibility exercised by Home Office Ministers in the immigration rules, when they come up against a case in which the circumstances are unusual or particularly compassionate. There again, we have rules, but there is some margin for Ministers outside the rules to decide exceptional cases. I am left with the feeling that the system is, by this example, proving not only over-rigid but inequitable, and it is because of its apparent denial of social justice that the outcome of this case has so upset my constituent, Dr. X's father.
My second question, and the main question on which I look forward to hearing the Minister, is whether we are making enough allowance for the circumstances of medical students and others, such as PhD students, whose period of studentship is longer than the average. As many of us know—but it is not sufficiently recognised outside this House—medical students have a heavy work load and when they become junior hospital doctors they not only have a continuing work load but a weight of responsibility far greater than that of nearly all their contemporaries. Surely, then, it is all the more unjust that, if a medical student's life should be tragically cut short, his dependants should appear to be ungenerously treated.
While medical students are students, they are not required to pay national insurance contributions, but they are encouraged to do so. After they complete their period of studentship, they are allowed an extended period when any arrears can be made up. One asks where they are supposed to find a sum of perhaps several hundred pounds if there is a considerable accumulation of arrears.
It is a fact that between the ages of 16 and 18, students' contributions are formally credited, but this arrangement ceases after 18, and that seems an odd bit of logic. Would it not be more satisfactory if, as the Government have accepted responsibility for supporting students during training, it should be deemed that national insurance contributions had been paid by the Government, as, so to speak, the employer, just as the contributions of their contemporaries already at work are paid by their employers?
We must bear in mind considerations of equity and not ask for special treatment for students, but I am suspicious that


there is a bias against students in some situations within our social security system. That is illustrated by one unhappy phrase in a letter from an official to my constituent:
Those who were fortunate enough to continue their studies after reaching the age of 18 … ".
Searching for a solution and leaving aside the generality of students, should not medical students be entitled to more nominal credits than most other students?
Summarising my main point, I ask: Is enough weight attached to the extraordinary burdens falling on these men and women when medical students and during their early jobs in hospital?
I have one or two subsidiary points. First, in the whole structure of student grants, I do not think that enough notice is taken of inflation in arrangements for the parental means test. I hope that the Minister will refer that point to his colleagues in the Department of Education and Science.
Secondly, in tragic circumstances such as these, the Department has not proved as quick as it should in responding to correspondence. The leaflets are not as clearly phrased as they might be, and the attitude of officials has not seemed to be as warm and sympathetic as the circumstances demanded. Could the Minister not try to get this kind of correspondence humanised and the Department's leaflets simplified?
The whole experience has left my constituent and me feeling that the situation of medical students in particular, and of their parents, is unsatisfactory. The impact of the current legislation and regulations on the widow—his daughter-in-law—struck my constituent as unjust and inhumane. I therefore ask the Minister, finally, whether he will undertake this fresh review of the way in which medical and other long-term students are affected by the present system, in the hope that the trauma of this experience should not happen to any others.

1.19 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Michael Meacher): I have listened carefully to what the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) has said about the tragic circumstances in which the widowed

daughter-in-law of one of his constituents was unable to receive widowed mother's allowance, and I should like to put on record the fact that the manner in which he has conducted this case on behalf of his constituent commends him greatly, because he has persevered at great length over a matter about which he and I have strong feelings.
I shall seek to answer each of the hon. Member's questions, but perhaps I should begin with what he said at the end, about correspondence. I am sorry that he feels there has been undue delay, but there has been much thoughtful examination of this issue within the Department. If the hon. Gentleman has had to wait longer than he would have wished, it was for that reason, not because the matter had been put on one side for long periods.

Mr. Lane: I was not complaining about delays in correspondence with myself;I was referring to certain delays at different stages between some of the hon. Gentleman's officials and my constituent.

Mr. Meacher: I am sorry if that has been the case. Again, I should say that was because there has been considerable internal discussion about this matter. It is not simply the general question behind which I might seek to hide, namely, the weight of departmental correspondence; there were special reasons in this case.
If the hon. Gentleman feels that some of the language has not been as humanised as it might have been, again I can only regret that he should feel that way. However, it does not indicate that this matter has not received extremely careful and sincere examination by both officials and myself.
The simplification of leaflets is a matter that we are always seeking to improve, and no doubt we still have a long way to go.
I should like to begin by making it clear that throughout the long history of statutory provisions for contributory benefits under successive schemes of national insurance, it has always been a cardinal principle that cover for sickness, unemployment, maternity, retirement and widowhood should be given only where the contributor concerned


has established full membership of the scheme by the actual payment of sufficient contributions. That is the simple contributory principle.
Because widow's benefit is designed to substitute in some measure for the loss of the husband's support, only his contributions can count for this purpose. That is the answer to the hon. Gentleman's question about the contributory record of the wife which, for that reason, is not directly relevant, though it is relevant in other respects to her benefit entitlement. I should add, on the question of the relationship between the social security provision and the Sex Discrimination Act, that under the Act—as in the case of other existing legislation—previous social security provisions are excluded specifically from its application.
For widowed mother's allowance, under the National Insurance Act 1965, which was in force at the time of the tragedy to which the hon. Gentleman has alluded, the requirement was for 156 weekly contributions of any class to have been paid, and it was a sad fact that the deceased had paid only 152 contributions. There were, indeed, seven years, corresponding to the time when he was a student, in which no contributions had been paid, except for five contributions at the very end of that period when the deceased started regular work, in which he continued for two and a half years until his untimely death.
It was a statutory requirement of the scheme that contributions could be taken into account if paid after the death, but only if they related to the last complete year or to the year in which the death occurred. That rule limited the opportunity of paying contributions after the event, which clearly conflicted with elementary principles of insurance. Unfortunately, the seven blank years in which the arrears had built up were already too remote to enable the widow to pay any of the missing contributions.
The National Insurance Act, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said—indeed, I again commend him for a very lucid account of the facts of the case, about which he has been entirely correct in every respect—did not give the Secretary of State, or the independent statutory authorities which decide claims for benefit, any discretion to waive the con-

tribution conditions. I think that is right. However distressing it may be to be involved in a borderline case of this kind, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not for a moment tolerate that rights to benefit or the withholding of benefit should be a matter of discretion, however generously exercised in some cases.
The hon. Gentleman made an appeal for flexibility. If we were to exercise discretion in a multitude of cases that arise in a vastly complex system, as the social security system is, we would simply generate a new borderline, and again some persons would find themselves, through no fault of their own, on the wrong side of the line. That is why the basic contributory principles have to be adhered to. Flexibility exercised by discretion, or extra-statutory discretion, involves considerable difficulties, which in our view—I think it is a view that the hon. Gentleman will share—cannot be exercised.
There is no discretionary power to enable compassionate payments to be made under the National Health Service Superannuation Scheme, of which the young doctor had been a member for only two and a half years. It is not irrelevant to say that payments under that scheme amounted to a little short of £4,000, although the deceased had contributed only £337. I know that this does not affect the general principle which the hon. Gentleman has raised, but it does indicate something about the equity of general receipts.
This debate centres upon the gap of about seven years in a young person's national insurance contributions record when he was a student. Because he was a medical student, the gap was longer than usual, and because medical training leaves little time for employment in the vacations, he had not had the opportunity to earn and pay a few contributions each summer. Nevertheless, the basic problem created by a late start in settled employment is one that concerns all young people whose education or unpaid training goes on after the age of 18. It is a problem that the National Insurance Advisory Committee has considered on three separate occasions, and the present rules entirely embody its recommendations.
Broadly speaking, a student does not have to pay contributions while he is not


earning, but he is allowed to pay sufficient Class 3 contributions to protect his, or his widow's, prospective rights to long-term benefits. He is helped to do this by a special time limit for paying the contributions. Under both the repealed National Insurance Act 1965 and the present Social Security Act 1975, these contributions can be accepted if paid before the end of the sixth year following that in which the course of education ceased. That is a considerable period. It was a lack of sufficient paid contributions which prevented the award of benefit under the 1965 Act in the young doctor's case. Credited contributions would not have counted towards the requirement that 156 contributions should actually have been paid.
The Social Security Act 1975 now gives much better cover for the young mother who is left a widow. Since the hon. Gentleman raised this matter in general terms, it may help if I spell out briefly the effects that the Act now has. The first contribution condition is now satisfied if the husband has paid 50 of the old weekly contributions at any time between July 1948 and April 1975. Where the death is after 5th April 1976, he must alternatively have paid contributions as an employee in any past tax year, on earnings of at least 50 times the lower earnings limit for the year. A junior hospital doctor who, in the tax year just ended, paid contributions on earnings exceeding £550, because £11 is the lower earnings limit, would have satisfied that test once and for all. It can also be satisfied by payment of 50 Class 2 contributions for self-employment or of 50 Class 3 contributions.
There is a further contribution condition. The standard rate of widowed mother's allowance can be paid only if the husband had attained the reckonable level of contributions paid or credited in approximately 90 per cent, of the tax years starting with the tax year in which he reached the age of 16 and ending with the last complete tax year before his death. All young people are helped to satisfy this condition by credits awarded, where needed, for the years containing their 16th, 17th and 18th birthdays. Thus, had the present conditions applied in the case that prompted this debate, the widow would have received a per-

sonal widowed mother's allowance at about half the standard rate, together, of course, with a full increase for her child, despite the non-payment of contributions for practically seven years of studentship. That is the present position under the Act. Another welcome improvement is that, following the death of an ex-student, his widow has rather more than a further year to pay arrears of contributions which he himself was entitled to pay immediately before his death.
It is true that 50 Class 3 contributions for the year 1975–76 would cost £95. Few young people who undertake a long and rigorous study such as medicine and who in many cases have to rely heavily on parental support—I shall pass on what the hon. Member said about parental support to the Secretary of State for Education and Science—will have £95, a not inconsiderable sum, to spare. It is tempting to say that the contributions should be credited, but it would be unfair to expect other contributors to subsidise students in that way. For every student there are many other young people who are working and paying contributions in jobs with no prospect of the financial rewards that most graduates will eventually enjoy. That is why students are given the opportunity of paying the contributions when they are established in their professions. Most of those who do not take this opportunity will eventually obtain a standard-rate retirement pension, despite a gap of five whole years in their contributions, but of course by not paying for at least some of the years of studentship they will be depriving their widows of full cover for widow's benefits.
There are special arrangements to help ex-students who started their courses of further education before the age of 21 and who need to claim sickness, maternity or unemployment benefit shortly after finishing their courses. But this is much the same kind of help as is given to new contributors generally, and confers no special advantage on students as compared with other people.
The hon. Gentleman suggested that the National Health Service should assume responsibility for arrears of national insurance contributions for former medical students who enter the hospital service. Apart from the expense, which


of itself rules out this idea, the questions that would arise are whether the payment should depend upon a minimum term of service and whether, for instance, doctors who enter general or private practice, or are aiming at working overseas, should get the same cover. There is, of course, no more reason for the National Health Service to foot this bill than there is for any other employer with a higher graduate intake to do the same for its employees.
It could also be suggested that student grants should be sufficient to cover the cost of contributions. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman was hinting at this in what he said about parental support. That suggestion is not for me, but it is open to the same objection as that which applies to crediting the contributions;

that is, it would require the ordinary worker to subsidise a person who had already acquired an above-average earning capacity at public expense.
I recognise that the hon. Gentleman sees the medical student as being in a special category, but I hope that he will also accept that one has to weigh the question of public advantage in terms of who makes the contributions and who receives—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Tuesday evening and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes to Two o'clock.